Review: Murder by the Book
With the first Covid Lockdown coming into place in March 2020 the entertainment industry came to a screaming and violent stop.
Productions already in the rehearsal stage were put on hold with no indication of when or if they would ever hit the boards.
As the world slowly started to recover the industry both professional and am-dram were still held back with limitations on audiences in venues making productions unviable.
Now with restrictions less strict it is a relief to see actors finally returning to stages up and down the country. Suffolk is blessed with many am-dram groups offering us anything from musical theatre to light comedy and even Shakespeare.
One group I am pleased to see survive all the problems are the Brook Players who I first discovered just ahead of lockdown.
The company tend to go for lesser known plays, which means we are treated to a story that we don’t know (so it’s new to us). Murder by the Book, written by Duncan Greenwood and Robert King is described as a light-hearted and inventive thriller with nothing being as it first appears.
I’m not going into detail (for fear of spoiling the plot) but the beauty of this piece is that you too can play at being the sleuth by trying to figure who did it and to whom. This story really does have you guessing what’s going to happen right until the final line of dialogue and there are more twists and turns than there are in the roads from Ipswich to the play’s venue at Copdock Village Hall.
The premise of the piece is that Detective writer Selwyn Piper (played by Jonathan Search) is on the receiving end of the wrath of his ex-wife (Christina Search). Support comes from Ada Venton as Selwyn’s secretary, Darryl Tester as his publisher and Abigail Mayes as Selwyn’s neighbour, who appears to have read too many detective books.
Murder by the Book is well performed and makes for a really pleasant evening and the Brook Players are a promising company who are well deserving of your support.
Copdock Village Hall until 29th October, tickets on the door £8.50, cons. £6.50 – Doors open 7pm, with performances starting at 7.30pm.
Find out more about the company by searching Brook Players on Facebook
Review: Mark Keable, Ipswich24 Magazine
Photo supplied by Brook Players