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A Murder Has Been Arranged

Published Wednesday 4 November 2009 at 17:50 by Mary Redman

On stage in an abandoned thirties theatre, they’re celebrating Sir Charles Jasper’s inheritance. The cast have polished up their best RP accents for the upper classes with misplaced aspirates for the lower orders in this revival of Emlyn Williams’ cliched, rarely performed backstage mystery.

Celebrating Halloween, the Queen’s techies have a ball with Norman Coates’ impressive set, Chris Howcroft’s electrifying lighting and eye-catching costumes, channeling high camp with echoes of Miss Havisham, backed by deeply atmospheric Bach chords and miscued thunder and lightning effects.

The cast use their best Brief Encounter high tension acting skills for this tale of steaming passions, potentially lost fortunes and skulduggery.

The play suits the Queen’s down to the ground, giving them a legitimate opportunity to overact. Under Bob Carlton’s direction, everything is stylish and stylised, with only the smallest added soupcon of tongue in cheek. Some characters are not who they appear to be and have dastardly motives, including bumping off their host for his fortune.

Karen Fisher-Pollard is a quivering, neurotic, melodramatic Lady Jasper, with Helen Watson as her controlling mother and Lucy Thackeray as icily controlled and sinister Miss Graze.

Simon Jessop as Jasper gives good death. Then there’s Elliot Harper’s inquisitive journalist and Marcus Webb as the uninvited, mysterious stranger aiming for the Jasper fortune. Jane Milligan times her comedy Mrs Wragg very well. And who exactly is Sarah Scowen’s ghostly Woman in Red?

It’s all very silly, very funny and very entertaining - especially the sword fight directed by Nicholas Hall.

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