Murder, She Didn’t Write is a quick, funny and well presented production. In this improvised show no one, not even the cast, knows what journey they will end up taking the audience on. I was struck immediately by the quality and careful design of the set, and I very much enjoyed that even as the audience were filing into the room we had our detective working on his notes and a pianist playing us in, it really set the scene and put you in right frame of mind for a murder mystery extravaganza. The show kicks off with some audience participation as one of the audience is chosen to help the detective in the investigation. The setting and the mystery are then set by the audience. The detective, played by Stephen Clements, had some great quips and jokes right off the bat, building up the excitement. The show was improvised by a clearly well-seasoned crew of actors and there were some excellent character portrayals as we met the cast of ludicrous characters.
I was particularly struck with the quickness of Caitlin Campbell (Miss Scarlett), who managed to come up with some very creative funny and fairly fleshed out ideas on the fly and Lizzy Skrzypiec (Miss Violet) had me in stitches with her absurd comedic moments. Something I really enjoyed was how much the music played a part in the piece, there was a musician adding to the atmosphere with a well timed musical accompaniment. This added to each scene and the camp, ridiculous plot. It almost felt as though the music was a character itself. The lighting was also used in an interesting manner as a way to push the narrative forward and create some hilarious moments that worked like a fade out.
Degrees of Error are a group of experienced actors who know what they are doing and clearly have fun whilst doing it, they made each other laugh more than once and created a fun, campy murder mystery full of all the tropes you could ask for, which had us all giggling throughout.
Silly, improv, murder mystery fun at its best!
Playing until the 29 August, further details and tickets can be found HERE.
Reviewer: Kat Clifford
Reviewed: 18th August 2022
North West End UK Rating: ★★★★