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Show: A Murder Has Been Arranged
Society: Theatre Royal Windsor
Venue: Theatre Royal Windsor. 32 Thames Street, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1PS
Credits: By Emlyn Williams. Produced by Bill Kenwright Productions. Presented by the Classic Thriller Theatre Company.
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 22/03/2023
A Murder Has Been Arranged
Chris Abbott | 23 Mar 2023 21:04pm
In a week when playwright David Hare has complained about the stranglehold that musicals have on the current theatre scene, it can only be good news that an unsubsidised theatre like the Theatre Royal Windsor is mounting an in-house production of a play not often seen now on the professional stage. It is, however, popular on the amateur theatre circuit, as many Sardines readers will be aware.
Presented under the banner of the Classic Thriller Theatre Company by Bill Kenwright (the theatre’s owner), A Murder has been Arranged is an early play by Emlyn Williams, written in 1930 when he was only twenty-five. It is very much a young man’s work, with lots of wordy exposition and quite a lot of the action happening offstage, although there are signs already of themes that would reappear in his more mature works like The Corn is Green and Night Must Fall.
It is no easy task to present a convincing production of a play that is almost a hundred years old, so it is good to see some experienced actors in the cast, particularly Ben Nealon as the villain Maurice Mullins. Nealon knows that a play like this needs a combination of a larger than life period style with a total commitment to the role, so that there is no hint of sending it up. Hannah Arterton is at ease in her role too, and makes Beatrice Jasper totally believable. As her older husband, his life threatened, the Sir Charles Jasper of Gary Webster is a rather restrained but dignified portrayal.
Many of the smaller roles are difficult to play as they are written very much as stereotypes, but Marti Webb is an entertaining Mrs Arthur, and even manages to sing a verse or two accompanied by the onstage pianist. Director High Wooldridge sets the play in the Theatre Royal (rather than the original St James), a perfectly valid decision in such an atmospheric theatre. Unfortunately, there seems to have been no designer, and the action plays out on a brightly lit stage with a selection of furniture and flowers against black drapes.
Madeleine Gray’s fine performance as the mysterious woman would have been so much more effective if she had appeared in a more atmospherically lit stage, perhaps appear from the gloom rather than striding on in full light from the wings. A good designer could have added much to the work of the valiant actors, and turned the undoubted attention of the audience into something nearer the apprehension with which the play must once have been viewed.
The curtain line followed by the safety curtain was also agonising due to the inevitably slow descent of the (presumably hydraulic) iron; and while it was an enterprising idea to project an invitation card from Sir Charles between acts, it was disappointing that it was out of focus. Wooldridge writes interestingly in the programme about growing up on these plays: I did too, and saw them all in fortnightly rep in the 1960s, which is why I was surprised at the absence, for example, of recorded music for the pauses between acts, during which time the audience sat in silence.
The National Theatre recently revived The Corn is Green, and threw everything at it, as only a subsidised theatre can; there must be a place, however, for revivals like this that enable current audiences to see the plays as they were once put on. To do so, however, needs talented resources in design and stagecraft as well as the acting expertise on view here.