Nothing is quite as it seems in Penelope Skinner’s would-be Hollywood noir The Sound of Heavy Rain. The hard-drinking private eye Dubrowski has the requisite beige mac, permanently lit cigarette and dingy office we recognise from American pulp fiction and yet his accent is decidedly English. Judging from his compunction to narrate everything he does, Dubrowski is also labouring under the misapprehension that he’s in a 50s detective movie and therefore expects his new client to be a blonde bombshell with killer heels and scarlet lips. Instead Maggie turns out to be a dowdy secretary with a perm, sensible shoes and the tale of a missing lounge singer, Foxy O’Hara. The mysterious Foxy has disappeared as quickly as she arrived in Maggie’s life, trailing a string of disappointed suitors and sporting a scarlet wig and jade kimono. If that doesn’t sound unlikely enough, Maggie can’t seem to find a photograph of Foxy anywhere and there’s no record of her existence to be found on any official documentation. Dubrowski begins to smell a rat and the plot only thickens when he meets Graham, a shifty loner dragging a big body-shaped bag around with him.
There’s much to like in this quirky pastiche, especially watching the multi-talented cast let their hair down with some comedy and cabaret after two more serious pieces in the Roundabout Season – One Day When We Were Young and Lungs. Kate O’Flynn gives a flirtatious performance as Foxy, or at least Dubrowski’s vision of her, looking strangely similar to his ex-girlfriend. Andrew Sheridan swaggers round the stage as a private dick who doesn’t seem to be able to detect his own self-delusion and Maia Alexander turns in a touching performance as Maggie, who can only see people through her unfashionably large rose-tinted spectacles. The mystery itself is one long tease for both Dubrowski and the audience but in the end has less to do with dastardly deeds than how we see ourselves and how others see us. These more sober themes sit a little uncomfortably with the fun and frivolity of the rest of the production and can make things drag a little. That said, the last all singing, all dancing sequence is certainly worth waiting for, with Alistair Cope excelling himself in a turn which makes us see grey Graham in a different light.
Of the three plays in the Roundabout Season, Lungs is the outright hit – fresh, funny, acerbic and needling contemporary issues without being an ’issues play’. Although The Sound of Heavy Rain lacks this bite it’s a fitting finale to a season which has showcased a variety of promising young talent.
The Roundabout Season runs until Saturday 26 November at the Crucible Studio.