Steve Keeling reviews A Judgement in Stone at The Grand Theatre…
A judgement in Stone is the latest production from the Agatha Christie Company who boast an impressive 10 year track record. The performance featured an experienced cast with a number of faces recognisable from TV and stage. The most famous of whom, Shirley Ann Field, featured in the 1960’s kitchen sink classic Friday Night and Saturday Morning.
The story is an adaptation of a Ruth Rendell novel and features the story of the gruesome murder of four members of the Coverdale family in a country house on Valentine’s Day 1978.
Firstly the good points; the country house set, lighting and clothes were perfect for this kind of performance and gave a genuine feel for its late ’70s setting (I actually spotted some Hornsey Pottery cups and saucers that my parents had!) Ben Nealon (sporting an authentic looking Gerry Adams 1970’s beard) gave a solid performance as Detective Sergeant Challoner and the four members of the Coverdale family were played with enthusiastic upper middle class silliness.
That, unfortunately, was as good as it got.
Lazy stereotypes, wooden acting and a pedestrian script made for poor fare for a sparse Monday night audience. I suppose the hard-core whodunit crowd may have enjoyed an evening of unchallenging light entertainment but with the denouement telegraphed from the beginning (this was not so much a whodunit as a ‘shedunnit’), the highlights of the evening were largely of the unintended comedy variety.’
Carry on Country House’ was one of the comments bandied about at the interval and the one dimensional performances lent a pantomime feel to the proceedings.
Andrew Lancel who played Detective Superintendent Vetch has an impressive CV including roles in Queer as Folk and Hillsborough. He is clearly an accomplished actor so this made his bizarrely wooden performance all the more perplexing. His contribution mainly consisted of standing rooted to the spot loudly declaiming the obvious. This was clearly not his fault, as an actor is only as good as his or her script and he was given precious little to work with in that context.
Sophie Ward was unconvincing in the lead role of Eunice Parchman. Her portrayal of the elderly housekeeper reminded me of Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques (one for our younger readers!). Again, she was a victim of the script. Without giving too much away (the book reveals it in the first 2 lines!) the character she portrays is illiterate. This was loudly signposted at regular intervals throughout the performance and presented an odd motivation for mass murder. She was joined by a bizarre partner in crime, a bible spouting ex prostitute played by Joan Smith.
Former Blue star Anthony Costa features as an odd job man with a violent criminal past. Again he was unconvincing and his big moment in the play when he snaps and brandishes a chair at the police officers (like a lion tamer) brought titters from the audience rather than gasps of surprise.
Overall I felt sorry for the cast. They are obviously accomplished actors and were hamstrung by a clunky script and wooden direction. Dedicated fans of this genre may enjoy it but it has little to offer for a wider audience.