A Tomb with a View

Bring up the Bodies: HADIT’s A Tomb with a View

Hope drama group’s latest production is a comedy thriller: a sort of Adams Family meets Agatha Christie mash-up, with a plot more baffling than the current Brexit negotiations and a body count to rival Reservoir Dogs.

The setting is Monument House, cut off from the outside world and swirled around by the customary murder mystery fog. There are panelled walls and empty bookcases leading to secret vaults. The room is dominated by a portrait of Septimus Tomb, the crazed-looking patriarch of the Tomb family, whose will reading sets the plot in motion. The set team (Graham Sedgewick, Steve and Jayne Fox, Ian Holmes and David Garwes) have played a blinder.

Enter the Tomb family: ‘mad as hatters, all of them’. Lucien (aka Lucifer) Tomb is played with ranting mania by Jon Haddock. Philomena Washington takes the part of Dora, who has managed to put a whole team of Morris dancers under her rose-bed with her poisonous potions. She has the appearance and manner of a disturbed Kate Bush. Monica Tomb, the sex-mad sister, spends a lot of time harassing Peregrine Potter (Danny Washington in terrified form), a visitor to the house. Jane Bramwell, blonde-wigged and deadly, owns the stage with a sort of glittering craziness. As well as a brother who howls like a werewolf in the cellar, there is Marcus Tomb who thinks he is Julius Caesar, roaming the stage in a toga declaiming Shakespeare (Nick Williams.) Jo Elliott, as cross-dressing sister Emily, padded out to resemble an all-in wrestler, was a tour de forcefulness delivering her lines with spot-on timing. Jo usually plays glamorous roles so she really showed her acting versatility in this piece.

Add to this mad mix, a weird house-keeper (Pat Gillatt), a dusty lawyer (David Garwes), a Scottish nurse (Jenni Argent), and a lady novelist (Cheryl Mulvey) and the scene is set for mayhem.

Members of the regular HADIT audience may have missed the comic presence of Tim Smallwood. This is because he was making his debut as director. The play makes some demands: it is a mixed genre piece, and whilst there are some humorous one-liners (well-delivered by the cast) it is not consistently funny and can be a little wordy. In the last scene the explanation behind all the murders slows the action, even though the actor recounting what happened acted really well.

HADIT give every production their all, acting with verve and energy: in this case, with a sort of gory gusto!

Margaret Coupe