Dead Simple

✭✭✩✩✩  Overcomplicated

King’s Theatre: Mon 2 – Sat 7 Feb 2014

While there is much in Dead Simple to satisfy fans of the crime genre, on a dramatic level it is far from convincing.

The play is an adaptation of Peter James’s million-selling book, the first in a series featuring Brighton–based detective Roy Grace. Property developer Michael Harrison is preparing for his wedding to Ashley when a stag night prank goes horribly wrong, leaving him buried alive deep in the Sussex countryside.

Jamie Lomas as Michael Harrison in a stag-night prank.

The storyline features enough twists and turns to sustain an evening’s entertainment. However, many of these developments are far too easily guessed, with others requiring a considerable leap of faith from the audience. With the book being so popular, no doubt adaptor Shaun McKenna wanted to remain true to the plot. This leads to events feeling shoehorned in to the detriment of the drama.

Although Jamie Lomas puts in considerable effort as Harrison, the character is presented as such a dislikeable individual at first that it is very difficult to care too greatly about his fate.

Detective Superintendent Grace fits very much into the ‘damaged cop who goes his own way’ stereotype so beloved by crime writers, and could easily be the focus of the audience’s sympathies, but this is undermined by a strangely flat performance by Gray O’Brien.

oddly low-key

He is not the only cast member whose efforts are oddly low-key. Tina Hobley’s Ashley seems subdued and is far too quiet at times, while others are hampered by sketchy characterisations that take an obvious back seat to plot. The ensemble feel that a touring show should be able to build up seems to be missing.

Gray O’Brien (Detective Superintendent Grace) and Tina Hobley (Ashley) in Dead Simple

In a cast sprinkled with familiar faces from long-running TV shows, the outstanding performer is the least experienced – Josh Brown, who plays Davey, a troubled young man who is unwittingly drawn into Harrison’s plight. He provides the sparkle and energy missing in the rest of the production.

Michael Taylor’s set also reflects the production’s drawbacks. A hugely clever split-level affair, its ambition is not matched by its user-friendliness. The attempt to provide several different acting areas takes away from the cast’s efforts rather than enhancing them, while there is also one hugely unfortunate example of large-scale scenery-shifting during a tense moment.

That said, some of the staging is extremely impressive – the representation of the coffin is well done, while there are some very successful uses of sound and light effects, courtesy of Martin Hodgson and Mark Howett respectively.

Director Ian Talbot ensures that the pace does not flag too much. The first half has some definite longueurs, but the second act picks up speed, even if much of what happens defies most rational analysis.

What remains is a largely entertaining if undemanding whodunnit, which passes the time but remains peculiarly uninvolving.

Running time 2 hours 20 mins including interval
King’s Theatre, 2 Leven Street EH3 9LQ
Monday 2 – Saturday 7 February 2014
Evenings 7.30 pm, Matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2.30 pm

Tickets from http://www.edtheatres.com/deadsimple

Click on the image to purchase Dead Simple from Amazon:

ENDS

Tags: Hugh Simpson, Ian Talbot, Jamie Lomas, Josh Brown, King's Theatre, Michael Taylor, Peter James, Review, Roy Grace, Shaun McKenna, Theatre, Tina Hobley