Death by Fatal Murder - Theatre Royal Review

★★★☆☆

The much-loved Colin McIntyre Classic Thriller Season has stormed back into Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, bringing with it another dose of intrigue, mischief, and old-fashioned stagecraft. This year, the resident troupe trims its repertoire from four plays to three, but promises the same sharp wit and suspense that have kept audiences coming back year after year. With the curtain rising on the 2025 season’s opening mystery, one question lingers in the air: Does this year’s debut deliver the thrills we’ve come to expect?

Death By Fatal Murder is the third instalment in Peter Gordon’s tongue-in-cheek Inspector Pratt trilogy, a gleefully silly parody of the classic English murder mystery. Set in the drawing room of a country house during World War II, the play follows the hopelessly inept Inspector Pratt as he bumbles his way through yet another baffling case. Called to solve the murder of a Police Constable, Pratt encounters a delightfully eccentric assortment of suspects — from a secretive naval officer to a psychic medium and an Italian guest with a mysterious past. With misunderstandings piling up, clues that go nowhere, and Pratt’s own idiocy ensuring chaos at every turn, the play delivers a farce-laden whodunit brimming with quick-fire gags, absurd twists, and affectionate mockery of the Agatha Christie genre.

The Colin McIntyre Classic Thriller Season is no stranger to high standards, but this year’s opener, Death by Fatal Murder, felt more like a lively warm-up than the polished fare audiences have come to expect. The ensemble threw themselves into the chaos with commendable energy, yet the production often seemed split in two: half the cast leaned into broad farce, making their characters and physicality the punchline, while the others kept their performances grounded, letting the script’s humour do the work. Both approaches have merit, but the clash in styles left the show feeling uneven, as if it were still trying to find its rhythm.

Mark Pearce’s Inspector Pratt was the night’s most unpredictable presence — and for better or worse, the performance ensured you couldn’t look away. His boundless energy and constant movement gave Pratt an infectious absurdity, and when his choices hit the mark, it was masterful, and the laughs were huge. But when the character tipped from endearingly inept into sheer implausibility and absurd stupidity, the comic tension was broken, and many easy laughs went begging.

Karen Henson’s return as Miss Maple, a role she inhabited so well in last year’s Murdered to Death, was a welcome sight, and her poise and precision remain a pleasure to watch. Unfortunately, this year’s script gives the character far less to work with; this regular character’s involvement feels shoehorned into the action. It’s especially frustrating given this is an actor who has wrung gold from this role previously.

Andrew Ryan’s Stiffy Allwright and Pavan Maru’s Constable Thomkins provided the show’s grounding influence. Ryan delivered a commanding yet measured performance, adding humour without overplaying it, while Maru’s Thomkins was understated, believable, and refreshingly consistent. These quieter, more controlled portrayals offered a welcome balance to the more extravagant performances elsewhere — though one couldn’t help but wish that balance had been struck across the whole production.

As the third instalment in the Inspector Pratt trilogy, Death by Fatal Murder unfortunately boasts the weakest script of the bunch. In the second half, all the delightful chaos and farce come screeching to a halt for a lengthy stretch of exposition, front-loading the plot in a way that drains momentum. This is very much a writing issue rather than a performance one — the cast worked hard to keep the pace up, but the energy inevitably dipped during this narrative detour.

Technically, the production keeps things simple and serviceable: a neat living room set with the essential doors for farcical entrances, a sofa, table, and writing desk, all used efficiently. Lighting and music did exactly what they needed to do, providing a clean canvas for the performances without drawing focus. Nothing flashy, but no missteps either.

Among the cast, Sarah Wynne Kordas (Nancy), Susan Earnshaw (Blodwyn), and Jeremy Lloyd Thomas (Garibaldi) struck an ideal balance between subtlety and silliness, playing directly into the spirit of the piece. Sadly, not every character landed quite so well. Ginny Farquhar’s exaggerated voice and mannerisms pushed the role far beyond caricature from her first entrance, making it hard for the audience to invest in her — a shame, as building that connection would have paid off in the later plot twists.

It’s worth stressing that this is far from a write-off. The Colin McIntyre Classic Thriller Season’s company are an experienced, talented troupe who delivered a lively and well-rounded show on opening night, despite the limitations of a script that offers fewer opportunities for depth than previous years. There’s every reason to believe next week’s Deathtrap will show this cast firing on all cylinders. For now, Death by Fatal Murder remains an enjoyable, if imperfect, night at the theatre — one that delivers laughs and entertainment, even if it doesn’t reach the heights we’ve come to expect from this much-loved season.