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Cluedo The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham **** Amid the somewhat dubious claims that
pretty much everything dear old Blighty does these days is world
beating, we are certainly in the top one when it comes to one thing . .
. the art of daftness. For a start we gave the world modern panto – that
they didn’t actually take it is their problem, and then we have a fine
record of comedy described as surreal, abstract, theatre of the absurd
and so on – but it can all be summed up with one simple, four letter
word . . . daft. There was The Goons, A Resounding Tinkle, A show Called Fred, Monty Python, The Play That Goes Wrong, soon to go wrong again at the Alex, and now Cluedo! For those who know the famous board game,
invented in Birmingham incidentally, this is familiar territory as Miss
Scarlett (Michelle Collins), Mrs. White (Etiyai Philip) and Mrs. Peacock
(Judith Amsenga) turn up at the spooky Boddy Manor along with Prof Plum
(Daniel Casey), Rev Green (Tom Babbage) and
Col Mustard (Wesley Griffith). There is a terrible storm outside, (flash of lightning, crash of thunder), the road is flooded and the bridge is down so there is no escape from the mansion which, by coincidence has a billiard room, lounge, library, study, kitchen, conservatory etc, all off the hall. The guests have been summoned by letter and their
host Mr. Boddy, soon to be Boddy by name and also by nature, gives each
of the guests a gift, a wrench, a gun, a knife, a lead pipe, a candle
stick and a snake . . . sorry, length of rope. Greeting them is the butler, Wadsworth, a
wonderful performance from Jean-Luke Worrell, the maid Yvette (Laura
Kirman), who is not really French, and the cook (Meg Travers) who has
all the charm of a grizzly bear with toothache. Slowly we find out more about the characters, Miss Scarlet is . . . well, a scarlet woman, or more a Madame in this case, The prof, a struck-off medico, is a bit of a would be ladies’ man while the Colonel, works in intelligence, not that intelligence and the Colonel often appear on the same page, let alone same sentence. He makes being just stupid appear to be merely an ambition.
Mrs. Peacock, a bent minister’s wife, has a drink
habit while Miss White seems to have a love life which consists of
getting herself married and then getting herself widowed – how much her
late husbands consented to the latter part of the relationship is
unclear. The Rev Green is gay and accident prone and as
dynamic as . . . let’s just
leave it as accident prone. So, the scene is set for some remarkably well
timed and well drilled choreographed mayhem all to a harpsichord
accompaniment (Michael Holland). Bodies pile up, a stranded motorist, a passing
policeman and a singing telegram (huh?) who turn up on the doorstep, end
up dead and there is room for a twist, or rather half a dozen twists at
the end, or ends as we seem to have a lot of them with alternative
reruns. A mention on Press night for Harry Bradley, by
the way, who arrives as a policeman wanting to use the phone and loses
his moustache mid speech – damn this cheap spirit glue - providing extra
laughs with Wadsworth as they milked it for all it was worth, cleverly
turning a mishap into a comic moment. The play was written by Sandy Rustin, based on
Jonathan Lynn’s screenplay for Clue. Lynn being better known as
a co-writer for Yes,
Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, and it is
directed by Mark Bell who took the reins (there were reins?) for The
Play That Goes Wrong. Everything is done with impeccable timing, the
essential element for any comedy, on a brilliant set from David Farley
with six doors and fold out walls to create the familiar rooms. There are some clever moments as well, such as
the slow motion fall of the chandelier to land on the Rev Green, or the
rapid rewinds to take us to alternative endings. As we said at the start the play is daft, silly
to the extreme, with inane jokes, physical humour and a few murders
chucked in for good measure, The plot is . . . should we just say, well hidden, while the only point of the whole thing is to give you a laugh, lots of them in fact. The result is an enjoyable night of stupid, daft nonsense, and don’t we all need a dose of that from time to time. Bodies will be dropping like flies at Boddy Manor to 07-05-22. Roger Clarke 03-05-22 |
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