site search by freefind advanced

 Connecting professional and amateur theatre in Newbury, West Berkshire and beyond

≡

KATS

The KATS web site is at www.kats.org.uk. Facebook. Twitter: @katsorguk

Next production

Where

Upper Bucklebury Memorial Hall, RG7 6QH.

Box Office

www.ticketsource.co.uk/katsorguk.

Review of Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders

25th to 27th July 2024

Review from the Newbury Weekly News.

KATS crack the homegrown whodunnit

The author of this murder mystery play, Derek Webb, said that the idea of village hall murders of committee members came about when he had recently resigned from a committee ‘which contained several members I could cheerfully have strangled’.

Appropriately enough, KATS presented it in Bucklebury village hall, an ideal location.

The author also began thinking that he should seek inspiration from over-the-top murder mysteries such as Midsomer Murders and then of course ‘Poirot, Miss Marple… any Agatha Christie in fact’.

However, no matter where the inspiration came from, this is not a whodunnit quite in the Christie style. What it is turns out to be a very funny play, half-comedy, half-farce, basically about a completely incompetent police detective inspector and a clever young lady, Agatha Crusty, pronounced Croosty for some reason not specified.

There was some very good acting in this production, particularly when considering that many of the jokes were visual rather than verbal. Full marks to David Richardson as the bumbling inspector whose facial expressions were very good adding to the comedy. Mike Cole as the vicar Toby was also well up for the visual comedy.

There is a strong temptation to ham it up outrageously in situations like this, one that Mike Cole, David Richardson, Russell Barrett and Gemma Cole were occasionally guilty of, but in mitigation the play did rather call for it, so the author was the one to blame really.

There were strong performances from Carrie Marsh, Mandy Cole, Sarah Clifton and Eileen Paula as the various committee ladies and Joe Rollinson played the hapless police constable. Seb Waddington had the chance to play Olivier and then dress up in drag to become Olivia, his sister. Jenny Woolf was quiet, self-effacing, going about her surreptitious sleuthing without anybody noticing, which, of course, was spot on in the tradition of Miss Marple.

So much here was in that Agatha Christie tradition and yet the author managed to come up with a fresh comedy that was all his own.

It was smoothly directed by Janet Kilgallon-Brook at a good pace where stage movement and positioning was well observed.

This was the sort of unusual comic situation play that must have been great fun to rehearse. And it was certainly one that the audience enjoyed, as they indicated with their applause.

DEREK ANSELL

Previous productions