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The Hampstead Murder Mystery

The cast rose superbly well to the challenges of presenting this rapidly changing, linguistically demanding parody of the Murder suspense thriller, featuring a very funny soundtrack of stings and ominous string sounds to add to the playful suspense.

Inspector Chippenfield, played by Hugo Maguire with his ‘in disguise’ junior detective Rolfe at his side (Thalia Shadbolt in the mst fetching of organge moustaches) slid from scene to scene with great focus and pieced together the most complex plot we have ever attempted to present– or at least they thought they did. They thought they got their man in Regan Brown’s dodgy Birchill, who faced a trial but was clearly innocent.  Cameron Thomas’ Montague Crewe delivered the proverbial dashing private detective with wonderful fourth-wall destruction, and indeed the whole cast really played it with full energy and dynamism throughout. Grace King-Turner and Taryn Young stood out as the scheming cousins whose love letters were one of the many red herrings to the investigation which eventually saw Alex Robinson’s Kemp be let off for killing a man in self-defence.  With a set of cases which doubled as projection screens, the audience were treated to a fast moving thriller which was great fun for all involved.  Needless to say the production had all the twists one could wish for before the great reveal denouement at the Old Bailey end and even the surprise appearance of the murdered man in the audience! Congratulations to the cast of 46 who completed the week with tremendous skill and success.

The Hampstead Murder Mystery – by Tim Norton, The middle school production March 6-8 2019