MURDER by Word by Nick Wilkes NEWS
'MURDER by Word' by Nick Wilkes. Joseph Govier was a very successful racehorse owner, trainer and sometime gambler. He knew he was dying, so he bet his entire fortune on a race and lost....but when the debtors approached his Estate for their winnings, the money had varnished.Two men stop at nothing to recover his fortune. (Evenings at 8.00pm and Saturday afternoon at 2.30pm.)
News of a new play by Malvern based Nick Wilkes, always whets my appetite. I have followed his career over the last few years with increasing enthusiasm. As I have written before, I am a fan not to say that everything he has written has been universally outstanding. This offering, MURDER by Word definitely is one of his best; possibly the best, I have experienced.and believe me, this was an experience.
From the very beginning the audience at the Studio Theatre, part of the Everyman in Cheltenham, were enthralled. Most murder mysteries dont start with a murder before we get to know anything at all about the victim, but then nothing about this exciting play was predictable. The twists and turns were ever more unbelievable, but before the night was out, everything made perfect sense.
Nick has often appeared in his own plays, never with a better outcome than when playing this immoral, or is it amoral, bookmaker, trying to reclaim money he is owed from a punter. His characters lack of moral compass, be it revealed by his preparedness to inflict clinical brutality on his chosen victim or in his verbally violent outbursts, was totally believable. So too, was his carefully researched historical details to support the plot.
This three-hander, played to the strengths of the other two characters just as well. Murray Andrews is always a delight. His capacity to master any accent, and his comic timing, even in a play where it might be thought humour was out of place, are second to none. He and Adrian Ross-Jones, who proved to be the coolest of the lot, have worked for and with the playwright on many previous occasions. Trust in both the author and the director, Jon Legg, is a vital element when staging successful new work. All four can be proud of an engaging, scary, and surprisingly educational evening. Nicks research always has you thinking, I didnt know that. I wont be the only person who rushed home to access Wikipedia to discover the truth of a wrecked ship carrying a cargo of Waterford glass. Or was I?
Its a sign of Nick Wilkes developing reputation, that his Four Small Cast Comedies has been published and is available on Amazon. Hopefully, companies across the UK, and further afield, will soon be entertaining audiences with productions with this and other of his works.
It was a pleasure to see a sell out audience. Long may it continue.
by Humph Hack for remotegoat on 27/02/14
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