Post by mkb on Nov 9, 2023 12:52:48 GMT
Well, I definitely had the wrong idea here! I went into the Alex in Birmingham on Tuesday night expecting a murder mystery / whodunnit, but Murder in the Dark is nothing of the kind.
Instead, it's a drama worthy of an Inside Number 9 episode. Events unfold one New Years Eve when a washed-up former boyband star and now an alcoholic (very well played by Tom Chambers) arrives at a remote property having crashed his vehicle while trying to take family members home from his mother's funeral. Susie Blake -- so good and so different from previous roles I've seen her in -- plays the elderly host.
I won't say anymore. Even the official webpage says too much in the opening paragraph. The least you know, the more there is to enjoy, and enjoy it very much I did.
The dialogue from Torben Betts is always believable, and director Philip Franks, who's an old-hand at this type of thing, keeps the pace up while the tension builds and we try to work out what is really going on. Characters that could be two-dimensional in other hands elicit sympathy, perhaps where none is truly due.
It's lowbrow entertainment, but it delivers with aplomb. Recommended.
Four stars.
Act 1: 19:31-20:15
Act 2: 20:36-21:20
Instead, it's a drama worthy of an Inside Number 9 episode. Events unfold one New Years Eve when a washed-up former boyband star and now an alcoholic (very well played by Tom Chambers) arrives at a remote property having crashed his vehicle while trying to take family members home from his mother's funeral. Susie Blake -- so good and so different from previous roles I've seen her in -- plays the elderly host.
I won't say anymore. Even the official webpage says too much in the opening paragraph. The least you know, the more there is to enjoy, and enjoy it very much I did.
The dialogue from Torben Betts is always believable, and director Philip Franks, who's an old-hand at this type of thing, keeps the pace up while the tension builds and we try to work out what is really going on. Characters that could be two-dimensional in other hands elicit sympathy, perhaps where none is truly due.
It's lowbrow entertainment, but it delivers with aplomb. Recommended.
Four stars.
Act 1: 19:31-20:15
Act 2: 20:36-21:20
