Writer/Director: Feargus Woods Dunlop
In the front of the programme are short pieces by composer, set designer, sound man and costume designer as well as one of the actors. This seems to sum up the philosophy of New Old Friends, the touring company responsible for Crimes on Centre Court. The four actors playing over twenty parts are crucial to the whole enterprise, but equally important are the daft songs, the costumes that can be changed in a flash and the perfect synchronisation of sound and action.
Crimes on Centre Court is, by any definition, extremely silly. Set at the Whombledun International Invitational Tennis Tournament (the transformation of “WHOMBLEDUN I.I.T.T.” on the scoreboard provides a striking theatrical coup), it centres initially on the death of club chairman, Lord Knows, at the hands of a dish of strawberries and cream. His son, Hugh Knows, returns from Monte Carlo to find his father has left the tournament to noted English tennis player Fred Digby, Other murders follow: chief umpire Owen Owens and two of the international stereotypes who stalk the corridors of Whombledun.
Sleuths Penny and Perry Pink (who are not married!) are called in, though they seem somewhat preoccupied, he with advancing in the tennis tournament, she with consuming foie gras with Hugh, now Lord, Knows. Eventually Penny’s exposition of how it all came about went completely over the head of at least one audience member!
Perhaps the greatest inspiration in the show comes from the close-harmony hedges. All four actors, well wrapped in greenery, detach themselves from Caitlin Abbott’s carefully manicured hedges and launch into Guy Hughes’ terrifying song, Murder. From time to time, throughout the evening, one or more bits of hedge surface to sing or to potter purposelessly with some prop. Who would have thought that hedges could come up with such a range of gesture and facial expression?
The tennis matches are fun, too, with balls returned from unseen opponents and a match played out with a ball on a long stick, and Ben Thornton’s party trick of disappearing behind a hedge by going down non-existent stairs (or escalator or lift) goes down a treat. He survives being murdered twice in the opening half hour to pursue felons as Perry Pink with all the concentration of a man determined not to wear short shorts. Katriona Brown has all the answers as Penny, melting at the least hint of a romantic encounter. Kirsty Cox very nearly reaches double figures in parts played while registering the solid English virtues of Lord Knows’ assistant Wendy Weaver. And the impossibly upper class Emile Clarke adds to his considerable height with a badly behaved wig as Hugh Knows.
If the production slows down a bit in the second act, the invention of Feargus Woods Dunlop’s gang always has another rabbit to pull out of a hat – actually, that’s one trick they missed!
Reviewed on 20th September 2023. Touring nationwide.
