REBUS: A GAME CALLED MALICE at the Cambridge Arts Theatre
★★★
“Gray O’Brien with his languid movement and rugged good looks gives a towering performance”
Co-writers Sir Ian Rankin and Simon Reade bring a new Rebus story to the stage. The deliberately claustrophobic-looking set (Terry Parsons) is a traditional dining room with a large table centre stage and two doors leading out, left and right, which stay almost permanently closed. The walls are crammed with framed oil paintings, all individually lit. A surfeit of table and wall lamps and a suspended chandelier exude a luscious creaminess (lighting Matthew Eagland). We are at the wine and whisky stage of an impressive dinner party and the guests have been playing a murder-mystery game. Clues are discussed and hypotheses shared. We hear mentions of ‘motive, method and means’ and it’s all delightfully intriguing. Director Loveday Ingram skilfully moves her actors around the stage, seating them in different ways to provide some variety within a fundamentally static setting.
I confess to never having read a Rebus novel or seen him on TV so I might have missed expected nuances inherent in his character, but Gray O’Brien with his languid movement and rugged good looks gives a towering performance of the newly retired police detective. Initially, he spends much of the time at a distance from the other guests, prowling in the background, observing. He breaks the fourth wall to speak to the audience of his ability to ‘read the room’, the trilling of his Scottish burr a joy to the ears.
There is a lot of backstory to get through before we can have the thrill of piecing together who might have it in for whom but there is no kitsch, the script is well-written, and there are some genuinely amusing one-liners. But this back story is predominantly concerned with characters we never see and it becomes an effort to follow. Just as in the murder-mystery game the dinner guests play, the initial excitement wears away and the truth, when it comes, is somewhat underwhelming.
The ensemble cast does what it can but all the characters bar Rebus don’t have much to work on and everyone generally underplays. There’s some uncertainty within the ensemble too, particularly at the start of the second act that stuttered in this performance, but it will all gain in fluency once the run (and UK tour) has established.
The party hostess Harriet (Teresa Banham) is almost transparent in the first act but comes to life in the second with a fine burst of nervous energy. Her husband Paul (Neil McKinven) rather goes the other way, showing fine bonhomie at the start before withdrawing from the later affray. Most regrettably, for the role could be a fine one, is Billy Hartman (Jack Fleming), a casino owner with a shady past but the performance lacks the flamboyance that might be expected from such a character. Then there is Billy’s trophy girlfriend Candida (Jade Kennedy) who, as a supposedly superficial ‘social influencer’, shines out above the mediocrity around her; and, lastly, former lawyer Stephanie Jeffries (Abigail Thaw) isn’t given much to say for herself but does a fine look of indignation and disgust.
With Ian Rankin co-writing, this seems like a missed opportunity for creating something better than an average whodunnit but the central role of John Rebus just about saves the play.
REBUS: A GAME CALLED MALICE at the Cambridge Arts Theatre followed by UK tour
Reviewed on 2nd September 2024
by Phillip Money
Photography by Nobby Clark
Previously reviewed at this venue:
CLUEDO 2: THE NEXT CHAPTER | ★★ | March 2024
MOTHER GOOSE | ★★★★ | December 2023
FAITH HEALER | ★★★ | October 2023
A VOYAGE AROUND MY FATHER | ★★★ | October 2023
FRANKENSTEIN | ★★★★ | October 2023
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION | ★★★ | March 2023
THE HOMECOMING | ★★★★★ | April 2022
ANIMAL FARM | ★★★★ | February 2022
ALADDIN | ★★★★ | December 2021
THE GOOD LIFE | ★★ | November 2021
REBUS
REBUS
Click here to see our Recommended Shows page
