MURDERED TO DEATH by Peter Gordon

Don Fell discusses his production for The Revels Drama Group of Knowle

_ 'hi' ire] Irr The Reve ls Drama Group was formed in 1949 ,1 nd has bee n enter tainin g the res id ents of Knowle conti nuously since then. The Group was form ed by the Clarke famil y, and Judeen Cla rke became well hlown in amateur circles. The name of "The Revel " de ri ved from the fact tha t or ig inally it was formed as a va ri e ty troupe, but afte r a vcry short time it was staging full-length plays and pantomimes, usually on a makeshift stage in an outbuilding attached to a local pub! When Kn()wle Vi llage Hall was L'rected in the 19605 this be'came our permanent home but, unfortun a te ly, we do not have exclusive use of th~ hall. As can be see n, \ve are (1 relati ve ly s ln all group w ith limited facilities, but each season \,ve stage three full-l e n gt h productilH1S (one of which may be a pan tomime) and a special evening of One Act Plays for our regular patrons. We have also performed in the National Festi va l with modest success.

by Gordo n as a comedy but at times the play becomes pure farce. It has a cast o f five men and five women and takes place in the lounge of a Manor House owned a nd occupied by Mild red Bagsho t. In the bes t tradition of this type of play she has invited some friends to stay with her for the weekend, and at the end of Act I scene 1 Mildred is shot dead. Ente r Inspec tor Pratt and his sidekick Cons table Tbomkins (continually referred to by Pra tt as Thompson). Pra tt is a bumbling idio t who manages to get everything wrong, and the rest of the characters are quite bizarre, a ll hav ing something to hid e. The fact that this is an Agatha Christie spoof is highHghted by a wonderful remark by the l(Jcal village s leuth, Miss Maple. When introduced to a French art dealer she says, "His accent rather remi nds me of a Belgian gentleman I know." The play ends in total confusion and, th anks to Pratt, the murdere rs probably get away with it!

10

short of men, as are ' l' groups . An add~d difti beca use of other comml ­neve r seem to find a they a re a ll ava il ,lble . my first task was to fi nt! would be availabk' de lighted to find that were available for thl! the good news bei ng su ited the pur ts in th ­armnged a rClld ing / aud on the day before the re of the men wi th drt'l\". I g with one of our 18-\'ear­(who I had not ' prev io usly because I th was too young for th r said that he would take and could do a Frendl aeo.

reading , a­eleven lad i!!. the five fema.

revamping necessary. becau se pe riods eight chMacters are l

a t the same tirr thi s creates difficulti movement and gro uping" small stage. Tuesda \'_ Thursdays are our rehearsal evenings and t11 held in a room at the Villa ma inly because it's cheaper' the room than the sta ~ Sunday evenings were boo stage nearer the performa n Ie

for technical and dress rch Altogether 24 rehearsa ls '....e . and we thoroughly enjoy all. The play is absolutely hi an d on many occasio n ' dissolved into helpless laL. _ particularly as new " busin added . Indeed there bee danger of "corpsing" performance dates drew ne. it was necessary to "have II

here and there w ith the IX ­concerned . I need not ha ve \;

PRODUCED the time the performances

ey had got it all out of their 5 a nd there was no

-tng".

_ b not large but quite a good ~ nd we maximised the

lb le spilCe by starting the set ~ht anglt's a t one side, and by m g the flats ilt the back of the _~ as far buck as possible to w the minimum amount

~ - i ble for the cas t to move n c! . Our sets are ulwilys solidly

- lmcted and braced, to allow rs to be slammed and windows

• opened w ithout a tremor in "walls". For this lounge we

:I ~" skirting boa rd, a picture ilnd a dado rail, and carefullv

'tied wallpapers and paint t;) . eet the 19305 period. We could

fi nalise the set until quite near p erformance dMes because the

.:e had been hired to another Id y affiliated to the Vi.lIage II , but fortunately we completed

T1 good time.

FURNITURE

play calls for a sideboa rd, a -k, a settee and cha irs. We have

Id sideboard in which we store lis and tools e tc., and th.is was

yOJgged on to stage, clea ned up, rl'­ined and it looked good. I ided to have a chaise-longue

. ,t~ad of a settee and this was Ired from anothe r larger socie ty

. ' e ther with a suitable desk. Our -cl urer obligingly lent us he r two

-mchairs, and their green colour octly matched the green of the .l ise-longue. Other casual chairs d tables owned by the group ere used and I was delighted th the overall effect. With regard props, there was a problem

_Ia ting to the g un used in the play. has to be a serv ice revolver. We ve one, but it works only "t? rmittently and our reliable gun

- the wrong shape. Fortunately, gun shots are either offstage, or

' \h the se rvice g un poking round partly ope ned d oor, so we were . I~ to achieve the necessary effec t

I the shots offstage. The play ' 0 calls for two s peCial pictures to

placed over the firepla ce a nd c:,,, were painted by a loca l artist ho is also one of our members) d who also painted the backing

-ene outside the window.

!' group has an extens ive rdrobe but it contained no thing

..1table for the 1930s. Our Jrdrobe Mistress dre~v up edules of the ty pe 0 clothing

....h character s hould w ea r,

complete with photographs, a nd we decided to hire. Costumes were hired from the Hall Green Little Theatre and Birmingham Costume Hire, illld two of till' cast hir >d wigs fl'Om The ustard Factory in Birming ha m . The hirers were extremely helpful and I felt that the styles and colours helped us to achieve the 1930s look . The a uthentic 1936 policeman's uniform waS loaned to us by the

urator o f the \V('9 t Midlands PoliCt~ Museum. The cost of hiring was quite high, but in my viE' \\' it was well worth it for the end result.

LIGHTING There Me no problems under this hE'ading as there a re virtually no lighting and sound cues except for the te lephone and doorbells. It is impossible to have control of these from the back o f the ha ll faCing the stage, but we have set up a n excelknt alternative. We have placed a v ideo came ra in the ceiling of the hall directed at the stage, ilnd this leads to a TV screen in the wings 50 tha t control can be exerci st'deas il y from there. In addition, ano ther lead is fed to , TV screen in the dressing room for tht' purpose of cueing the actors for their entrances.

The play itself requires no music but I tried to set the mood of the period by play ing dance music of the 19305 for thirty minutes be fore curtain up. I also used a sma ll pieCl' of moody 1930s mus ic belore opening the curtains on each scene.

Thanks to the efforts of our Publicity Manager, the play was well publicised. Not only did we get a mention in Amatellr Stage, but we had photographs a nd a small column in the Bir/JIillgllll lll EvmillS Mail, Svlihull News, Svlillllll Tillles, a nd also in the loca l Parish News.

SUMMA CONCL

l'VIlirdemt to Dcath is a light-hearted comedy thriller a nd has to be treated as such . In order to get the best results it has to be phlyed "straight". Each characte r mus t show tota l belief and sine rity in the lines delivered no ma tter how olltrageo us they m ay be. This applies especially to the actor playing Ins pector Pratt. This is a pa rticu larly difficult comedy part to play bearing in mind the many variations he uses regarding names, and the comed y business necessary in the play. He could

almost be described as an English Inspecto r Clou seii u .

All in all, I was very pleased with the performance of thi s play. The Village Hall seating is limited to 200 because of Health and Safety Regulations and this is quite a tight squeeze. The play ran for three nights a nd our a udience totalled fi ve hundred . They went away w ith smiles on their faces and the feedback fo llowing the play has been exce lle nt. We all had a lo t of fun and in my view that's what comedy is a ll about.

[ see that Peter Gordon has written a seque l to Mllrdered to Death. Wha t a mouth-wateling prospect!

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