A Murder Has Been Arranged

Supernatural thriller. It is November 1930 and the eve of Sir Charles Jasper's 50th birthday: if he lives through the night, he will inherit two million pounds. More importantly to Sir Charles, however, is that his birthday celebrations are being held on the stage of the St James's Theatre where legend has it that a ghost will walk tonight. The ghost, of a dead sorcerer, is reputed to rise from the corpse of a dumb woman when circumstances are right.
He is the only one who eagerly anticipates this spectre: the remainder of his guests and servants are fervently hoping that no such thing will disturb the party. It preys upon their minds, though: his young wife Beatrice, her mother Mrs Arthur and the few employees who have not already fled - Mrs Wragg the cook , Miss Groze the secretary and Cavendish and his jazz band. There are also uninvited guests who join them: Jimmy North, apparently on an unexpected mission to rescue Lady Beatrice and the charming Maurice Mullins, Sir Charles' long-lost and only relative.
Mullins, it transpires, has been tipped off by his ex-lover Miss Groze. He poisons Sir Charles, making it appear suicide and taunts the rest of the party, who know the truth but will never be able to prove it. It is then that the dumb woman does appear. Beatrice forces everyone to wait - understanding intuitively that it will be Sir Charles' ghost that rises - and traps Mullins into confronting the spirit. It is too much for Mullins' mind and he goes insane, having confessed to his crime.

I don't usually take too much issue with press reviews, good or bad: they are, after all, only one person's opinion and quite often contain valid criticism (or, indeed, praise). In this instance, though, what comes through is simply a patent dislike of the play itself. Fair enough - as an opinion - but not really an objective assessment of the performance.

It isn't a play that will necessarily appeal to everyone: a long period piece that steadily builds towards a claustrophobic, dark finale, concentrating on interactions between characters who begin as quite shallow individuals but have to find inner strength and fortitude as events progress. Rather like watching an old movie, it is a creation of the time and if some of the dialogue or action along the way seems a little dated and quaint, well, that's period for you. Enjoy it for what it is, or don't enjoy it...but to simply dismiss all that was good about the production is unnecessarily harsh, especially in the context of an amateur production.

And there was very much that was good about it: the set was effective (given that the St. James is a little bigger and better than our stage), lights and sounds gave a superb sense of atmosphere throughout, period costumes looked very much the part and both cast and crew put in a lot of effort around the production. The end result was what I had wanted - everything moving inexorably towards an inevitable and horrifying doom. In exchange for which, a few prompts in a dialogue-heavy, difficult play are really neither here nor there.

Anyhow, to disagree fundamentally with our reviewer: I do not feel our (noticeably large each night) paying audience were applauding from a sense of misplaced generosity. They are the ultimate arbiters of the success of all of our performances and they certainly seemed appreciative of this one.