An infamous true-crime story turned into a musical with too many songs!Rating
Good
True crime has always been catnip for the stage, and the lurid 1922 case of Edith Thompson – executed alongside her teenage lover Freddy Bywaters for the murder of her husband Percy – certainly comes pre-loaded with scandal. Youth, beauty, illicit letters and a whiff of tabloid hysteria: it’s ripe material. Chris Burgess’s Entertaining Murder revisits the case and the results are a mixed bag.
We’re in 1972, fifty years on from the evil deed, where Edith’s sister Avis (Sue Kelvin) narrates events through the lens of hindsight and grief. Her account, drawn from Edith’s passionate letters to Bywaters, sends us back to the night of Percy’s death. It’s a murky scene – Percy (Alex Cosgriff) suddenly prone, Edith (Daisy Snelson) hysterical – and the central question is quickly established: we know who killed him, but why? The immature Bywaters (Dominic Sullivan) is the culprit but was Edith, through her romantic fantasies, the instigator?
Act one leans heavily on the older Avis’s narration, and not always to its benefit. There’s a persistent sense of being told rather than shown, which dampens the drama before it has a chance to ignite and the storytelling feels a little rushed. That’s partly down to the sheer volume of songs: sixteen crammed into an hour, giving the piece an almost sung-through quality. Quantity, unfortunately, doesn’t translate to impact. Few numbers linger, and many drift past without really sharpening the narrative. The dialogue, where there is any, borders on the clichéd with lines such as “shocked me to my core”, “butter wouldn’t melt” and “you made your own bed”.
Things improve after the interval. The second act, centred on the trial, finds a clearer dramatic focus. Kelvin, underused earlier, finally gets her moment and brings welcome gravitas and emotional clarity. There’s also more variety in the score, including a striking tango number that briefly lifts the show into something more distinctive. Snelson and Sullivan generate a believable, chemistry as the doomed lovers and Gee and Cosgriff, as well as playing the young Avis and Percy, also play a variety of other roles and at times act as a Greek chorus commenting on the action.
The second act also has a lot of songs, fourteen and these on the whole are earnest ballads that move the plot along. But then the tone suddenly veers into Mel Brooks territory towards the end when Gee and Cosgriff, as a couple of common folk, sing a jazz swing number ‘See Edith Thompson Swing’ (get it?) – all very odd just when everything was very serious and dark and heading towards the pair’s inevitable dénouement.
All of the cast sing superbly but the star of Entertaining Murder apart from the always wonderful Kelvin, is Musical Director Aaron Clingham’s orchestral arrangement. Using all the modern technology available to him, he makes one keyboard sound like a full-sized orchestra, lush and cinematic at times – that and Richard Lambert’s excellent lighting design, gives the piece some class and polish.
This is a piece brimming with ideas that could do with firmer shaping. A tighter edit – fewer songs, less narration – would make a significant difference. Burgess, who handles book, music, lyrics and also directs, might benefit from a more ruthless outside eye and ear. As it stands, Entertaining Murder is intriguing but overextended: a compelling story still searching for its most effective telling.
Book, music and lyrics by Chris Burgess
Directed by Chris Burgess
Musical Director & Orchestrations by Aaron Clingham
Choreographed by Robbie O’Reilly
Lighting by Richard Lambert
Costumes by Carla Joy Evans
Produced by LAMBCO Productions
Entertaining Murder plays at Upstairs at the Gatehouse until Sunday 10 May.
