Playhouse Theatre
Thursday, 24 November
Bristling with professional jealousy, personal animosity and outsized egos, critics Moon and Birdfoot turn up to review the latest whodunit. Is it a modern classic, or just another load of dreary old rubbish?
The set depicts not a drawing room, but a set depicting a drawing room, complete with conventional stage-set items such as fading art prints, brass fire screen and the obligatory french windows. The action on the ‘set' includes over-stylised, clumsy acting, and dialogue that doubles as exposition and stage directions.
Confusing? Well, things only get worse as Moon and Birdfoot find themselves caught up in the on-stage action, and actors quietly install themselves in the critics’ seats.
Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound was first performed in 1968 but doesn’t seem to have aged a bit. The Dunedin Repertory Society’s production, directed by Brent Caldwell, sits neatly as a sequel to, and a parody of, The Mousetrap, performed at the Playhouse earlier this year.
Performances are excellent. Kimberley Buchan and Dylan Shield make a superb pair of warring critics, and Josh Black, Cait Gordon, Rosie Collier, Chris Cook and Chris McCombe round out the cast of aristocrats, mystery-man and police inspector. Ellie Swann, as Mrs Drudge, steals the show every time she appears as the, well, drudge.
Shield, Gordon, Collier, Anna Denys, Becky Hodson and Meko Ng have done a great job of the set, one of the best I’ve seen recently.
Fiendishly clever, ridiculous and always hilarious, The Real Inspector Hound is among my favourite-ever comedies. It was last seen in Dunedin at the Globe in 2010, and this production provides as much fun as a one-hour play can. We can all do with a pre-Christmas cheer-up, and about 30 people enjoyed it thoroughly on the opening night. The season will run until December 3.
- Barbara Frame
