Madcap comedy in a made-up murder mystery

May 7
2 min read

Some of the colourful cast. Photo by Pamela Raith Photography.

Murder She Didn’t Write. Performed by Degrees of Error at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, from 6-7 May. Director Lizzy Skrzypiec.

Review by Hilary Hopker.

The premise of this play is simple yet terrifying for most actors. No one knows what’s going to happen next, not the audience, not the actors, nor the guy on sound effects. This is improv at a level you’ve never seen before.

The play opens with a detective narrator, played excellently by Peter Baker, setting the scene. Yes, this is going to be a classic murder mystery, think Cluedo come to life, but the audience must first choose an event where the murder takes place and the murder weapon.

Topically the audience chose the Coventry City winners bus parade and a random member of the audience dubbed ‘Jerkins’, decides the murder weapon is a clockwork air fryer. This is the point where you realise there’s no way any element of this play could have been rehearsed in advance.

Degrees of Error. Photo courtesy of the artists.

What follows next is meeting a series of colourful characters who take on roles around the Coventry City winners’ bus parade, from bus driver and journalist to team captain and council worker. Prompted by the narrator, the comedy becomes ever more madcap and the storyline more convoluted.

Then our audience member ‘Jerkins’ is asked to select which of our characters will become the victim of the clockwork air fryer. The selection is shown to the actors but not the audience. More madcap comedy ensues until ‘Gloria Gold’ is found crispy and dead on the bus.

Then it’s time to hunt the murderer. More laughter follows as each of the actors gives a potential motive for the kill. Best line of the night goes to Monica Gaga playing well-endowed local journalist Berlinda Blue who declares she’s ‘taken her bra off so this better be good!’ The actors barely stifle giggles as they try to carry on with the show.

A hilarious evening with Degrees of Error. Photo by Pamela Raith Photography.

This also leads to a great scene where the heroic Roger Red, played by Harry Allmark, has a naked chat in the bus swimming pool with Victor Violet after playing keepy-uppy with a bowling ball. Yes, that’s as hard to act as it sounds.

In the end Victor Violet, played inventively throughout the whole show by Stephen Clements, is revealed to be the murderer. By which point the audience have laughed so hard my theatre-going companion declared she needed a rest and a lie-down.

Highly inventive, totally madcap and utterly hilarious, if you get a chance to see this show take it. And if you’ve seen it before, as the narrator says at the end, come see it again, it’s a different show every time!

Discover more from Warwick Arts Centre: https://www.warwickartscentre.co.uk/whats-on/events/