HOUSE OF GHOSTS

Weymouth Pavilion

DID it really happen? Yes it did, a real life professional theatre company performed a drama on the stage of Weymouth Pavilion, almost certainly for the first time in a generation or more, truly an occasion to celebrate.

Norfolk based Baroque Theatre Company got everyone thinking hard in this production of a play based on Colin Dexter’s famous Inspector Morse novels in which the Oxford detective and his sidekick Lewis unravel a murder that takes place in a theatre during a performance of Hamlet.

It soon transpires that most of the cast of the Shakespeare play share a past association with Morse and as the detective tries to establish how a beautiful actress was killed, he is drawn into revisiting his youth as the ghosts of the past come back to remind him of former days when he was a student.

Morse and Lewis find themselves surrounded by luvvies as they try to solve the crime at the same time as the actors are rehearsing for their roles in Shakespeare’s tragedy. It seems too that the dead woman Rebecca had few admirers among her colleagues, most of whom had plenty of reasons for wanting her out of the way.

The character of Morse himself is a changed man from the reserved academic we know so well. In this production Nigel Fairs brings a whole new image to the detective who has now become passionate, loud and outspoken but at least Lewis, played by Ivan Wilkinson, is still the same underdog Scouse we all recognise from the television series.

This being a stage play, the glories of Oxford are missing from the scenario and the set is merely four tables which double as numerous locations, surprisingly successfully at it happens.

A strong cast help to develop the complex plot that is challenging to follow at times as the murderer is slowly revealed while several actors, particularly Paul Cleveland, play a number of different roles with notable success.

The production is touring nationwide and is a welcome addition to the Pavilion’s varied programme of events.

MARION COX