FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2025
Murder For Two
Will Arundell and Rob Gathercole in 'Murder For Two'.
Production Photo: Carrie Davenport
Bruiser Theatre Company's Murder For Two is more than a successful adaptation of successful theatre, it's the audio and visual take on Frasier Crane's Nightmare Inn – for the uninitiated, the serial at the heart of that glorious Frasier episode, "Ham Radio" - that we perhaps didn't know we needed but feel absolutely delighted to have found. To put it another way, it's a production where madness in the moment is not happenstance, irritation and fury through the art of the super ego running wild, but fuel for ultra-expressive performance theatre as consummately crafted comedic cabaret. You might call it Grammer's grammar (see what I did there?) adapted and re-invented as a new kind of gift - the tenaciously verbose, physical and melodic as an entirely heartfelt communal achievement, and not just a cheerfully farcical reflection of single-minded over-ambition. Happily, Murder For Two is both – all while entertaining the audience at Belfast's MAC within the part meta, part musical, part mystery framework of Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair's play.
A framework like that is, no matter what way you choose to play it, hugely demanding, but said demands are a task that director Lisa May, cast members Rob Gathercole and Will Arundell, musical director Matthew Reeve, choreographer Jennifer Rooney and more are entirely up to meeting, and even exceeding, as they relish in the provision for eclectic vibrancy on Stuart Marshall's suitably minimalist and appropriately colourful set. The characters in the show certainly don't "chicken" out, as a small portrait of a Colonel Sanders lookalike on the wall of the set may suggest – theirs is an exercise of countering fear of the unknown with full on gusto and gumption, with Gillian Lennox's costumes, a piano in the middle and a collection of catchily composed and intelligently lyricised tunes to help out.
Rob Gathercole and Will Arundell in 'Murder For Two'.
Production Photo: Carrie Davenport
The story of the play is set in motion with the murder of famous novelist Arthur Whitney, which requires detectives to be called in to solve a mystery. Except all the detectives are out of town, leaving us with the perhaps too earnestly idealistic Officer Marcus Moscowicz, sturdily played by Gathercole, to try and solve the crime before the real detective arrives. And there are suspects to be found all over the place – every single one of them portrayed by Arundell in a vocal and physical showcase which hugely impresses in its versatility and inspires wonder in its energy and endeavour. Purpose and drive meet reality, sense and structure meet zaniness, and a host of the murder mystery genre's most well-known aspects get tossed into the blender for – there really are no better words – the kind of theatrical Bruising that only May and her company can provide, accomplished here in the space of just one ninety-minute act.
Murder For Two feels like a genuine rarity – pure and swift entertainment put together and performed with real heart, motion and thought. It is consistently clever, it is relentlessly funny, and its appeal is both instantaneous and lasting, especially if, like I have been, you are being introduced to the characters and hearing the songs for the first time. This Dream-Nightmare Inn of fun and frolics, as staged by Bruiser, is one that I believe audience members will definitely want to return to, perhaps several times over.
Simon Fallaha
Murder For Two runs downstairs at Belfast's MAC until Sunday May 11, before going on tour until Sunday May 18. For more information and tickets in relation to the MAC performances, click here. For more information and tickets in relation to the touring performances, click here.