It’s good to laugh and this week’s show at the Lichfield Garrick has laughs aplenty. In fact on the way out I overheard one audience member saying it was the funniest thing she’d seen in years. Praise indeed.
Death by Fatal Murder is a sort of sequel to last year’s outstanding Murdered To Death and it’s apparently part of a trilogy so we’ve still got one left to look forward to. This comedy whodunnit like its predecessor is a delightful parody of that cosy and nostalgic Agatha Christie world of toffs beleaguered by a string of awful murders where an old lady and her knitting can calmly solve the most heinous of crimes. And just like last year Ian Dickens’ meticulous production features a beautifully-cast crew of Cluedo caricatures who make sure the fun never flags.
Cooped up together in the traditional murder-prone country house this time there’s the wonderful Nicola Weeks as the posh hearty land-girl Ginny Farquhar, you know the sort who pronounces house as hice, and the elegant Michelle Hardwick as suave house-party hostess Nancy Allwright. Richard Gibson is her splendidly raffish RAF-type husband Squadron-Leader “Stiffy” Allwright while Leslie (Dirty Den) Grantham is the hilariously over-the-top stage Italian Enzo Garibaldi. Ingrid Evans’ performance as amateur sleuth Miss Joan Maple (geddit?) was a masterpiece of elegant economy, while reprising his role from last year as the hapless Constable Thompkins was the droll Christopher Elderwood in a very welcome return.
But of course the whole show is really a vehicle for one of the worst detectives ever to blunder onto a stage, the malaprop-prone and terminally thick Inspector Pratt who bumbles his way through any number of dastardly plots en route to a comic conclusion. David Callister here made this a master-class of timing in a performance littered with verbal and physical disasters (including a set which at one point started to fight back) that had the audience and at one point the cast in tears of laughter.
I haven’t forgotten Katy Manning who truly deserves a special mention as Blodwyn Morgan the Welsh psychic whose second-half séance demonstrated all her considerable acting skills.
Lovely to see a full and happy audience for a play, proving that people will turn out for productions of real quality.
Death By Fatal Murder runs until Saturday (October 8). For tickets phone the box office on 01543 or go online at www.lichfieldgarrick.com.