“Murder For Two”
Nottingham Theatre Royal

Officer Marcus Moscowicz is a small town policeman with dreams of making it to detective. One night, shots ring out at the surprise birthday party of Great American Novelist Arthur Whitney and the writer is killed.

With the nearest detective an hour away, Marcus jumps at the chance to prove his sleuthing skills—with the help of his silent partner, Lou. But whodunit? Did Dahlia Whitney, Arthur’s scene-stealing wife, give him a big finish? Is Barrette Lewis, the prima ballerina, the prime suspect? Did Dr. Griff, the overly-friendly psychiatrist, make a frenemy? Marcus has only a short amount of time to find the killer and make his name before the real detective arrives!

Here is a piece of theatre that I have never seen the likes of before. Two actors play all the parts – and the piano – in an homage to the old style murder mysteries, and is a very different slice of comedy musical theatre, or murder mystery, and how often do you see these two genres merging?

You can see why this show did extremely well Off Broadway because the whole feel of it is that smaller theatre intimacy, which obviously works just as well in a theatre the size of the Nottingham Theatre Royal.

Jeremy Legat and Ed MacArthur are the actors who play all 13 characters, so a talent for voices is just one thing this talented pair can boast. They also both play the piano, separately and together. Their comic timing is so tight and slick and they also can dance as well - one of the characters is a ballet dancer so we see not only a bit of tap but ballet and theatre dance.

Comedy, and great comedy is all about timing and when you see that these two work props, hats, glasses, different voices, a door as well as a piano, you have to admire that they never miss a beat and everything looks to have been rehearsed to within an inch of rehearsals life.

The play was only written at the start of this decade but the whole look and feel is from the 1940s/1950s classic Dick Tracy detective era, helped along by a wonderfully retro set.

There are eleven songs with some wonderfully witty lyrics, and you know what, you can hear every single syllable from this pair, complementing the brilliant comedy acting, mixing in slapstick as well as mime.

They do though break an unwritten theatrical rule of telling the audience who the killer was in Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" - naughty boys!

This is one of the cleverest plays I have seen, and these two work hard, without showing just how hard they work to deliver something just a little different in theatre.

Oh, and the actual murderer in this show is definitely not who you'd expect it to be, but is a clever reveal.

“Murder For Two” is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Wednesday 28 November 2018