Prepare To Meet Thy Tomb

ADC Theatre, 25th-28th May, 7.45pm, £6-10

Directed by Sarah Ingram

[rating:4/5]

Prepare to Meet Thy Tomb is a delightful farce recording the arrival of a group of strangers at the home of the Tombs – a family with an unusual profession.

The set was promising from the start; the ominous Gothic undertones nicely offset with the location: Monument House, Alternative Health Spa. Another playful touch was the blood red lighting each time a murder occurred, lighting the stage in the final scene like a particularly morbid and monotone disco.

This light-hearted approach helped to ensure that no real threat was ever conveyed. Harriet Entwhistle as Drusilla Tomb sinuously prowled her way around the stage; the sulky adolescent rebelling against her old and benign-looking Auntie Hecuba (Lesley Nelson).

This was precisely the right characterisation for a comically inept family business unable to ‘dispose’ of anybody according to plan. Murder mystery clichés were twisted just enough to avoid the play becoming predictable, with sufficient cups of tea drunk that caffeine poisoning may well have turned up at the post-mortems.

Chantal Lontay as Miranda Torrence gave the standout performance, subverting the role of the traditional Essex girl with wonderful petulance. She breathed new life into a tired stereotype and her plot twist was one of few that felt genuinely believable. I’d say cast her for Series Three of The Only Way Is Essex, but, frankly, she has far too much class for that.

Almost as impressive was Chris Lewis’ hapless PA with a trick or two up his sleeve. He was a genuinely pitiable figure as the domineering Sir Beverley Comstock (Phil Orvis) berated him and added a new emotional dimension to the play.

That said, Sir Beverley himself was not entirely convincing when he left behind his habitual shouting, and other characters suffered from the same one-dimensional problem.

Though the mincing Quentin Danesworth (Peter Coe) was amusingly theatrical at first, the script allowed no further development so he swiftly began to grate. I have to confess I was relieved when he was discovered dead behind the sliding bookcase, only because it meant I didn’t have to witness any more tedious flirtation.

Nevertheless the play managed to combine enough ludicrous characters to hang together as a suitably baffling murder mystery that begins slowly but contains enough double-crossing to confuse even the great Hercule Poirot (not featured).