HIJINKS & CAVIAR at the New Wimbledon Theatre

★★

“In defence of the actors, they lacked nothing in energy and commitment, which they maintained throughout”

The best way, perhaps, to understand Hijinks and Caviar – a piece of new writing from duo Moody & Moody of Fluffy TOP Productions – is to see it as an approximation of an Agatha Christie period piece, but, alas, with none of the charm, intellect, or indeed, mystery. The play opens in mid 1920s England with the ambiguous death of Lady Mary (not of Downton Abbey fame, thankfully), whose husband has rudely read her diary and believes she was murdered (she had a long list of lovers/enemies). He quickly enacts a plan to invite all these people over to dinner and identify the murderer. Part of this identification seems to hinge upon someone having a flower tattooed on their thigh. I really can’t explain that bit further.

The guests gather, and their host never shows up (you’ll never guess why) whilst the three members of staff waddle about being confused. I don’t really know what happened for the next hour and a half, but people marched around with torches, and there was lots of bickering. But when they weren’t bickering or making asinine (and repetitive) remarks, they were singing. And dancing. Which I don’t think Agatha was quite as hot on.

A musical number, and indeed a musical, can be wonderful. But I don’t think even Les Mis, or Jesus Christ Superstar – which are entirely sung-through– had as many songs as Hijinks and Caviar. There were ten principal cast members in total, and each one had at least two solo pieces, as well as multiple ensemble numbers. And, as with a lot of new writing, the musical numbers are nothing special, and all blur into one monotonous chorus. This was no exception. There were just so many songs, and they did nothing to advance the plot. Or maybe they did, but I really couldn’t follow the plot, so I wouldn’t know.

The dialogue itself was not much better. It had about three gags which were regurgitated throughout. Every character was reduced to a lazy caricature of a 1920s Christie-esque figure. Each one seemed only to have one facet, and stuck to it throughout: for example, Lady Longfeather (Hayley Pettitt) is obsessed with etiquette yet only speaks in order to demand another drink, and thus gets progressively sloshed. Then she has to sing a song whilst sloshed. Mr Benny Factor (Danny Da’Val), on the other hand, is characterised as a dandy, but just makes continuous lude remarks to every female character. In defence of the actors, they lacked nothing in energy and commitment, which they maintained throughout. And no one looked like they envied the corpse, which was a relief.

Without revealing whodunnit, the ending seemed to me a frankly bizarre knock-off of Christie’s The Mousetrap, which remains London’s (in fact the world’s) longest running play for a reason.

Hijinks and Caviar is a new piece of theatre, and it is intended to be ridiculous. Unfortunately, it wasn’t clever enough to pull off absurdism, nor was it organised enough to pull off murder-mystery. There was definitely some fun in it, and occasionally, some decent humour. Perhaps its silliness does appeal to some, but its faltering structure, endless singing, and unoriginal dialogue, makes this a bit implausible.