Dial M for Murder gets respectful treatment at Malvern Theatres

So it was a relief to see Malvern Theatre’s Dial M for Murder treated with the respect a play of its pedigree deserved.

From the cut-glass accents to the immaculate staging, this how – as opposed to who - dunnit is a timeless classic and what would be the point of messing about with a classic?

So the audience took a step back to a more dignified era, when conversation centred around tennis tournaments and cocktail parties; where everyone was referred to as darling and the grubby business of an extra-marital affair and resulting blackmail was swept under the carpet.

There are few more familiar faces than that of Christopher Timothy, who inhabited our living rooms for 90 episodes of the long-running drama All Creatures Great and Small, so who better to play a thoroughly decent British detective? And Timothy didn’t disappoint. He brought exactly the right amount of humour and gravitas to make his Inspector Hubbard an authentic character who could have come straight from the pages of a Dixon of Dock Green script.

He provided a particularly apposite contrast to the oily Tony Wendice (Daniel Betts), spoiled and money-grabbing, whose jealousy sparks a chain of events that lead to his errant wife facing the gallows, with added input from the weasley Captain Legate (Robert Perkins). Sheila Wendice (Kelly Hotten) was the elegant and disappointed wife whose dalliance with crimewriter Max Halliday (Philip Cairns) provides the pivot of the plot.

Oozing the class and style of an episode of Mad Men, the cast perfectly recreated the Hickcockian ethos so beautifully demonstrated in the seminal film version of Frederick Knott’s play, but never allowed the big man’s undoubted influence to overwhelm a production that actually is equally at home on the stage.

Dial M for Murder runs until Saturday, April 19. To book, call the box office on 01684 892277.

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