I have, in my time, done enough theatre in draughty and ill-equipped village halls to recognise every frustration and challenge in Dial M for Mayhem with this band of actors, playing actors, shifting set and scenery into cramped spaces, as some people chip in and do all the work while other’s flounce and preen to get out of it.
If you’ve worked in theatre or done amateur dramatics, it’s a familiar scene. Act 1 sets up all the trials, personal relationships, diva-like behaviour and technical mishaps that will inevitably hamper this travelling band’s production of Dial M for Murder and as a result we do spend a lot of time waiting for things to ‘get going’.
The problem is that Dial M For Mayhem doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It’s billed as a comedy drama, but it’s not an out-and-out comedy, so the laughs, especially at the start, are sporadic. Then, when things get more dramatic, it loses its pace, so it doesn’t work as a drama either.
In the second act, there’s a scene of pure farce that lifts the whole thing and gets the laughs flowing freely with the audience, but it’s not a farce all the way through. Then, a complicated scene change before the last part of the play means the energy the actors have so skilfully built up is lost.
Frustratingly, as a show, it’s so nearly there. The six actors are all great in their sometimes duel parts, but the script needs tightening (for example you could completely cut the strange local who appears while waiting for the doctor), and then the energy and pace would pick up.
One word of warning. I thought I was in for a cosy ‘Play That Goes Wrong’ type show, and in many ways, that’s exactly what this was, but during Act 2, one of the disasters that befalls the company is that the stage manager has food poisoning. Therefore, this show isn’t safe for emetophobics, and as one myself, I was taken aback to actually see someone vomiting on stage, especially in a show that has been billed as a ‘ charming comedy drama’!
A trigger warning on the company and/or theatre websites for this tour would have been much appreciated.
Dial M for Mayhem runs at the New Wolsey Theatre until Saturday 22nd March – visit the theatre website for tickets or call the Box office on 01473 295900
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