Somebody killed the show

Sitting down in a dingy backroom of a pub in Camden, it seemed that we the audience were to play a more crucial role in this Hitchcock parody than previously anticipated. I turned to my ‘Partner in Crime’ and wryly noted that there were 13 members of the audience, indeed an unlucky number for the opening night of this performance. Over the next twenty minutes we witnessed the murder, not of a human being (it was clearly a red handkerchief and not blood spewing from the actress’s neck) but of the play itself.

The play was supposed to be a version of Hitchcock’s classic Dial M for Murder, however this became condensed into a twenty minute slot with plenty of other Hitchcock references thrown in, which didn’t allow the audience to comprehend the fairly complex plot. There were some redeeming points, including the good quality of acting from some of the cast and some legitimately funny moments. However, overall this seemed to be more of a technical run through than an opening night, with many of the sound effects being misplaced and the actors forgetting their lines. All in all there was a very rushed feeling to the performance, which ended abruptly and fairly inconclusively. So much so that the audience would have been unsure if there was an interval, had the cast not taken their bows.

Afterwards my partner and I sat in a local authentic fried chicken restaurant chain and tried to solve the mystery of whodunit? Was it the fault of the director? The Actors? A lack of time to rehearse? Or was it the representation of the Iconic Hitchcock film “The Birds”, being reduced to a wig on a stick chasing the actors around the stage? I think so.

Dial L for Latchkey, Pelas Theatre Company was at Etcetera Theatre