Murder! Love! Robbie Williams wallpaper? India Farnham visits Torben Betts’ Murder at Midnight and delights in this talented cast’s farcical, slapstick joy. Production images by Pamela Raith
I’ve had some truly terrible New Year’s Eves in my time. A particular one, where I was bedridden with both food poisoning and a crippling case of FOMO (read: Fear Of Missing Out – I’ve heard it’s lethal), comes to mind.
Alright, maybe terrible is a bit dramatic. I still got to hear Auld Lang Syne from behind the bathroom door. And no one died.
The same cannot be said, however, for a certain Mr Jonny ‘The Cyclops’ Drinkwater, the one-eyed, pig-farming gangster at the centre of acclaimed British playwright Torben Betts’ latest comedy-thriller-farce Murder at Midnight.
The clue is in the name; as the curtain rises, we watch a couple of burly police officers wander into Jonny’s swanky Kentish home and discover that an alarming number of people, including poor little Jonny himself, have been murdered there. At midnight, obvs.
Then, with a quick bit of nifty backwards sound design from Max Pappenheim, time reverses. Just like that, it’s 10pm again, and Jonny, who’s played with charming ease by Heartbeat and Casualty’s Jason Durr, swaggers inside. From there, this New Year’s Eve from hell begins again, and we, the delighted audience, are privy to the whole damn thing…
There is a lot to take in.
First off, the members of the Drinkwater residence get more and more bonkers as the show goes on. Highlights include Jonny’s emotionally unstable sidekick Trainwreck, played by a brilliantly blubbering Peter Moreton; Jonny’s giggly girlfriend Lisa, whose sing-song Essex accent almost disguises the fact she’s played by Coronation Street’s Katie McGlynn; and her ‘friend’ (wink wink) Paul, played by EastEnders’ Max Bowden, who just happens to be dressed as a vicar (??), is also the world’s worst undercover detective (??), and is also in love with the aforementioned Lisa (???).
Oh, and there’s also Jonny’s mum – a demon-fearing, tarot-reading Professional Crazy Lady – played with suitably Professional Crazy Eyes by an unhinged Susie Blake (Victoria Wood’s As Seen On TV, Coronation Street).
On top of this, thanks to incredibly efficient set design by Colin Falconer, this quirky crew are each having separate conversations – sometimes with each other, sometimes with themselves in the mirror à la Home Alone, and sometimes with another detective via a headset (????). Simultaneously. In different parts of the house. It’s… certainly not relaxing.
As the night draws on and midnight approaches, Jonny and his mother unpack his childhood trauma whilst dancing the paso doble; Lisa catches Paul doing a baby freeze in order to install a camera under the sofa; a guy in a clown mask turns up with some demands; Jonny’s obsession with Robbie Williams is revealed as his dog is killed (‘You killed… Rock DJ?!’); Trainwreck has some big feelings; and, crucially, we find out that Jonny’s ex-wife Alice went missing a number of years ago.
Everyone has a motive, and everyone has a weapon. Such is our conundrum.
Now, if you linger too long on any one interaction, there are some plot holes (why can none of them hear the others in the house?). So, in response, Franks’ Murder at Midnight doesn’t linger at all. Instead, the talented cast rattle on at breakneck speed, with revelations coming quicker than you can say ‘you’re off your nut’ – which they do say, rather a lot.
In other words, it’s silly, camp, bursting with stereotypes and character tropes, and altogether exceptionally improbable. I was thoroughly entertained.
What’s best of all about Murder at Midnight, though, is that it knows it’s all this and more. From its first scene where a police officer comments, ‘if some joker had written this as a play or something, you would never believe it’ to its surprisingly Jacobean/tragic ending, Murder at Midnight is delightfully tongue-in-cheek.
So! If you like raunchy, farcical, slapstick theatre, you’ll be pleased to know Torben Betts will be back with another Murder play after this one, so the fun doesn’t have to stop once you’ve seen Murder at Midnight. And if you don’t like it… well, then you’re off ya nut. Goodnight!
Catch Murder at Midnight at Theatre Royal Bath until 21 March. Tickets are still available via theatreroyal.org.uk.
