“A sublimely silly and frenetically farcical comedy whodunnit. A stately English home, an amateur detective, a missing will, a bloody knive Everyone is a suspect. Anyone could be the next victim Nothing is what it seems”.

 

Thus the program for DENOUEMENT! at the Carlton Courthouse and none of it false advertising! It’s a very, very funny satirical hard but hysterical take on the genre of stately-home-mystery-thrillers with perhaps a nod to Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound a wonderfully infamous piss-take of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap ; her definite work of the genre ; still running in London after 67 years.

 

Directed by James Hazelden, DENOUEMENT! has just the right characters and the cast to clothe and illuminate them, Lady Sadie ; matriarch , Emily Rowe , her witless son and playwright manque ; splinter off the old family escutcheon-dad was a country squire and successful mystery playwright but John; Chris Saxton; is as dim as a 1 volt light globe! At one point he ascribes the noise emanating from the butler’s bed room, to his wife Vera’s and young Jeeves’ struggles to re:arrange the furniture and their simultaneous ascending cries of “yes, yes, Yes! ” as triumphant confirmation of their success .

 

His wife Vera is played in arousal red by Kathryn Tohill like a well chilled martini, dry sophistication from her elegant hair to her red high heels . Throw into the dysfunctional family mix, Thomas, Mark Woodward, failed barrister but faithful family solicitor who is besotted with Lady Sadie, add Humbleby crack amateur detective from Chris Tomkins and finally Kimberley Duband as police detective and you have , as I did, 50 minutes of great fun and complete lack of respect for the genre that survives mostly on T V e.g. Midsomer Murders.

 

- Peter Green The Melbourne Observer

Original article HERE