“Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency”
Nottingham New Theatre.

I'm not sure how to describe this play, or more to the point, I'm not sure what words describe what I've seen. Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing, but this play is so different to anything that I've seen and is so off the wall, but is also so idiotically entertaining and zany. Look let's start with what the play is about.......

When Richard MacDuff'’s boss Gordon Way is shockingly murdered he is thrust into the bizarre and fast-paced world of Holistic Detective, Dirk Gently – his old room-mate from university. Dirk takes it upon himself to help Richard by finding the murderer using his unique detective techniques.

What Richard doesn’t realise is that accepting Dirk’s service will lead to the uncovering of a long-kept secret of Cambridge’s resident Professor of Chronology, Reg, and an attempt to help an alien from the beginning of time. I think that clarifies what this play is all about!

Beth Mullen (Dirk Gently) is so good in this play. How would I describe Beth and her character? Well, just think of the most outrageous, outlandish, foppish version of Dr Who and that may come close to Gently.

This whole cast must have had so much fun, I don't see how they got to getting this on to the stage in the time they did as they must have spent so much time laughing at the silliness. Echoes of Monty Python and The Young Ones come to mind for the utmost Off the wall humour. As I said, this is the craziest show I've seen since "Saucy Jack & The Space Vixens".

Joe Strickland (Reg), Daniel McVey (Richard MacDuff), Callum Walker(Gordon Way), Margaux Margaux Valarché (Susan Way),
Eric Crouch (Michael Wenton-Weakes), Isabelle Cadwallader (Sgt Gilks), Chloe Schlitter (Janice Pearce), Dom Bitten (Perkins), Jamie Drew (Albert Ross/Marvin Androyd), Sally Nesbitt (Sarah Androyd/Housekeeper) and Jake Gelernter (Watkin) are the brilliant cast who deliver the laughs and crazy story throughout the 140 minutes.

There's a great deal of technical work in this play as well and Ben Woodfordis the man behind this with the operators for this work by Adam Frankland, Rohanna Brown, Hannah Burne, Zoe Smith and Nathan Penney. David Taylor was the Projection Designer, which gave another wonderful layer to this piece of theatre.

Nathan Penney also did an amazing job with the lighting with Rohanna Brown in charge of the sound design.

The set was cleverly designed to cover every scene and scenario in this play with just the introduction of a few extra items to create car scenes etc.

With this large cast and the speed of some of the scenes you need capable stage managers and Laura Wolczyk, Maggie Dorling, Gemma Walton, Tom Proffitt, Emily Wong and Darcey Graham made sure everything ran smoothly.

Someone else who not only must have had an amazing amount of fun, but also must have had a few headaches with this enormous task was Director Arthur Mckechnie, and Producer Jess Donn, but wow, what a job they did. Obviously Arthur and Jess don't like to take the easy options!

And just before I sign off, I must mention the wonderfully eye catching poster and programme design for this particular show by Marsya Hazanan,

This is one play that you do need to experience because it fits a lot in and you will get a lot of enjoyment from this crazy, zany but clever play, which even has a musical number shoe-horned into it.

“Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency” is at the Nottingham New Theatre until Saturday 12 May 2018.