REVIEW: Murder by Misadventure

By Paul Bromley 

This is the third and final Summer Playhouse production at the Devonshire Park Theatre. 

The first two, Strangers on a Train and Bedroom Farce, were a psychological thriller and comedy.

Murder by Misadventure, written by Edward Taylor, is harder to characterise by genre: it’s neither a country house murder mystery nor a classic whodunnit. 

Instead, it has elements of An Inspector Calls, The Mousetrap and Gaslight combined with the best of workplace rivalries and bickering writers. 

It’s also set close to home with the action taking place, as the programme notes explain, “in a luxury apartment on the Sussex coast” and there are name-checks for Brighton and Lewes.

It’s a nostalgia-fest for those who remember the 1980s with a trimphone and electronic typewriter on display as well as references to British Rail, Terry Wogan and the Common Market.  

And there is a brilliantly curated playlist of 80s music before the show and during the interval. I suspect the relevance of most of the songs was lost on the (largely elderly) audience but I enjoyed – and was amused by – the selection of tracks including one by the band ‘Dead or Alive’ as well as songs ‘I (Just) Died in Your Arms’ and ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ which neatly fitted the plot. 

As for the plot, Harry Kent (George Telfer) and Paul Riggs (Pete Ashmore) have had a successful partnership writing TV crime series and dramas – what Harry describes as a “fruitful ten years”. 

But he now wants to go his own way and proposes a break from Paul. Harry is about to go on holiday to America with his wife Emma (Katy Dean) for six weeks to broaden his horizons. 

However, Paul has a hold over him which he has kept secret until now which thwarts Harry’s ambition to go it alone. “We have to stay together because we need each other,” declares Paul. 

This is where their life of writing crime fiction and knowledge of murder plots come in handy as Harry plans to do away with Paul using the fact that he’s house-sitting for them as cover. 

What could possibly go wrong? 

After the interval, Harry and Emma return from their holiday to discover his best-laid plans haven’t worked out. 

Enter Inspector Egan (Simon Pothecary) to question the couple and produce in a slow-burn series of revelations details about what has actually happened while they’ve been out the country. 

Plot twist follows plot twist as the battle between Harry and Paul to outdo and do away with each other intensifies until it reaches a satisfying and surprising series of conclusions. 

There are some lovely touches, such as all the gadgetry and technology in the apartment, and the sense of being close to the sea is captured well on stage, which is ironic since the theatre is just metres from Eastbourne seafront! 

There were some aspects of the production which weren’t so well handled.  

Breaking the fourth wall by turning to the audience with various asides by several characters did little to aid the narrative and broke the flow of the production. Harry's departure from the stage at one point to sit in the audience also seemed an unnecessary theatrical device. 

The actors spoke over each other a few times and I wasn’t the only one who had difficulty hearing some of the dialogue at the start. 

And Sussex residents won’t be too pleased to hear the stereotypical country copper accent of Simon Pothecary as Inspector Egan. Too much Hampshire burr for my ears. 

But overall, it’s an excellent way to round off the summer season and worth seeing as a counterpoint to the first two productions.

:: Tickets for the play, which runs until Saturday, 26 July, are available here

:: The ticket of the reviewer, a volunteer with Eastbourne Reporter, was supplied by Eastbourne Theatres