Looking Good Dead
WHEREVER we seek to lay the blame on the adaptation – this the fifth Peter James novel that Shaun McKenna has adapted for the stage – the director Jonathan O’Boyle, or the actors, the tension and suspense so essential to keeping an audience on the edge of their seats when watching a thriller, was in short supply.
The answer is probably, to borrow a line from Alfred P Doolittle when asked in Pygmalion if he was an honest man or a rogue, “A little of both governor, a little of both”.
There were just too many storylines within this convoluted tale of someone – no, I won’t give the game away by saying who is behind the plot – trying to have a wife murdered via a pornographic website, to make it easy for an audience to follow and plausible.
The three settings, two of which – the upmarket apartment and cellar in which the filming of the murder is to take place – were extremely good, but the third set in the local police station which looked like a cramped attic room, did little to help the three actors create a realistic setting. One of these was Detective Superintendent Roy Grace whose calm analytical mind finally sorts out the “goodies from the baddies”. In this adaptation Grace was a figure on the fringe rather than being at the heart of events, and in the cramped police office setting Grace’s much-needed, in a dark story, wry comedy remarks to his rather plodding Sergeant Branson drew more smiles than laughs.
EastEnders regular Adam Woodyatt and Gaynor Faye as the couple around whom the story develops used all their experience to fully develop their characters, making them believable even when the storyline stretched the bounds of probability a little too far, and found a ready partner in the youthful Luke Ward-Wilkinson as the third member of the family.
There were moments when director Jonathan O’Boyle blended this mixture of experience and youth together into a well-drilled team – National Theatre player Ian Houghton and Mylo McDonald, making a pleasing professional debut as the menacing Mick, among them – but too often short, disjointed scenes with the change of direction not fully explained stopped the flow.
I can imagine this adaptation working far better on TV, and it would be interesting to now read the book and see if the balance between the characters is similar to this stage adaptation.
For all of that there is still plenty in this production to please Peter James fans.