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An unconvincing arrangement A Murder Has Been Arranged Malvern Theatres ** WITH a mix of murder, suspense and a
ghost story, this play had all the promise on paper of being a
nail-biting thriller, but ended up as deadly dull. The pace never picked up throughout the two and a
half hour show and despite a splattering of the usual murder mystery
caricatures, it was hard to care much for their fate by the end of the
play. A Murder Has Been Arranged, written by Emlyn
Williams and first shown in 1930, culminates in Sir Charles Jasper
commandeering a theatre for the night to host his 50th
birthday with his young wife, her sour-puss mother, the secretary and
the elderly loyal maid. We quickly hear how Sir Charles is fascinated by
an old ghost story involving the theatre and that when he turns 50 that
evening, he will inherit a fortune – with the only rival to the
inheritance, a young man called Maurice Mullins, who has not been seen
or heard for years. But when Maurice turns up unexpectedly, the
evening takes a turn for the worse. With a plot like that, it could have screamed out
tension and fright, but the lack of tempo and atmosphere reduced it to a
drawn-out sigh of missed opportunity. You know things are going wrong when a scene that
should have been chilling to the bone – a mute girl entering the stage
in a repeat of an age-old curse - results in the audience laughing. Managing to lift the show from his appearance at
the end of scene one, actor Oliver Mellor (better known as Dr Matt
Carter in Coronation Street) was the strongest performer in a motley
crew of cast members. They included well known faces, such as Anita
Harris and Karen Ford (the art teacher Miss Booth in Grange Hill during
1980s), while Sir Charles was played by former QVC shopping channel
presenter Paul Lavers. The real issue though was that with so many dark,
expertly choreographed thrillers around, this play just looked pale in
comparison. Alison Brinkworth
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