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# REVIEW: Not Dead Enough: Theatre Royal
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/review-not-dead-enough-theatre-royal/
- Published: 2017-02-13T23:52:47.000Z
- Updated: 2017-02-14T08:53:10.000Z
- Description: In twenty-five years’ of theatregoing you tend to forget things. How many Hamlets have I seen? I’ve certainly seen two Hedda Gablers. Or was it a Hedda and a Miss Julie? Whatever happens I can’t imagine ever forgetting this production of Not Dead Enough. In its own way it was one of the most strikin
- Author: Michael Hootman
- Tags: News, Reviews, Theatre

[![](https://www.scenemag.co.uk/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/zz2a203707.jpg)](http://gscene.com/arts/theatre/review-not-dead-enough-theatre-royal/attachment/zz2a203707/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)

**In twenty-five years’ of theatregoing you tend to forget things. How many Hamlets have I seen? I’ve certainly seen two Hedda Gablers. Or was it a Hedda and a Miss Julie? Whatever happens I can’t imagine ever forgetting this production of Not Dead Enough. In its own way it was one of the most striking plays I’ve seen.**

It starts off as a decent, sober-minded police procedural. A woman is brutally murdered and DS Roy Grace (**Shane Richie**) has to gather evidence and sift through clues aided by his pathologist girlfriend Cleo (**Laura Whitmore**). He’s also helped by Sgt Glenn Branson (**Michael Quartey**) who, although a police officer, seems to have been modelled on a Dr Who companion. He certainly gets a lot of stuff explained to him. The main suspect is the deceased’s husband Brian Bishop (**Stephen Billington**). The first act ended with my notebook bursting with unanswered questions and possible leads. The play skilfully sets up an intriguing mystery which I fully expected to be revealed in the second act.

What I was not expecting was an absurdly camp piece of Grand Guignol which makes a Tod Slaughter melodrama seem like Ken Loach. It takes the hoariest of murder-mystery twists – a twist I thought had been outlawed sometime in the mid ‘40s – and, outrageously, ramps it up by about 50%. Plus it has a villain who, in the midst of his monologuing, half-sings some of the dialogue in true demented nutter style as he reveals – in great detail – his dastardly plan. His motivation for said plan seems to have been borrowed from some long-forgotten Victorian gothic novel.

The villain is so shameless he actually says of his handcuffed victim that ‘*she’s a bit tied up at the moment*’. It was then I started to look round the auditorium to make sure the audience were seeing what I was seeing. I was beginning to fear it was all a glitch in the matrix. But, reassuringly, others were chuckling along at the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

At this point reviewing tradition dictates I should say something about the acting. But I’m too fixated on the question of whether this was intentionally some kind of comic deconstruction of the genre with a knowing postmodern nod at its most obvious tropes. But if it was then why play the first half straight?

OK, the acting: The cast do a sterling job. Richie is very good at portraying the everyman police officer who has no bizarre quirk and, refreshingly, isn’t a maverick. Whitmore manages to get the right balance between likeable love interest and calm professionalism. The villain is quite remarkable, astounding even, in his lip-smacking villainy.

As a collectors’ item this is worth a visit – it seems doubtful you’ll see anything quite like this at a theatre ever again. Unless, perhaps, you get a time machine.

Continues at the Theatre Royal, Brighton until Saturday 18.

[For more details and tickets click here.](http://www.atgtickets.com/shows/not-dead-enough/theatre-royal-brighton/?ref=scenemag.co.uk)