Book, Music, Lyrics and Director: Chris Burgess
Is murder entertaining? The curious title of this new show at Upstairs at the Gatehouse bills it as a murder mystery musical. While this sounds like a much-needed mash-up of genres, it is, in fact, a marketing misstep that serves this strong show poorly.
Entertaining Murder is not a murder mystery in the Agatha Christie sense, but a re-telling of the real-life case of what became known as ‘The Ilford Murders’. This story, in particular, the role of Edith Thompson in the murder of her husband, gripped the general public in 1922.
The title promises a levity that the show does not intend to deliver: the “Entertaining murder” of the title refers to the description of Edith’s letters before the murder, in which she repeatedly flirts with an absurdly wide array of methods to see off her husband, Percy Thompson. That said, the writing does succeed in framing the story in such a way as to reveal the evidence and empathy for and against the accused in subtle and revealing ways. Audience members unfamiliar with it will be intrigued until its conclusion.
The score is largely rooted in appropriate jazz age styling with a bit of modern Broadway thrown in for good measure. The writing is capable, if not always catchy, and the music supports the drama well and integrates seamlessly with the book. However, with 30 musical numbers across a little over two hours, quantity is an issue. Cuts would allow key musical moments to develop into heftier numbers, rendering them more memorable with greater dramatic weight.
The lyric writing relies too heavily on rhymes so predictable that the audience can work out what is coming next. A moment of genius is See Edith Thompson Swing. Here, writer Chris Burgess turns the tragic crux of the tale into a comedic number that spotlights the behaviour of the public as spectators to a public hanging. It’s a moment of daring that shouldn’t work, but does, drawing the audience into reflecting on its own ghoulish guilty pleasure.
It’s all brought to life by a compact cast with no weak links. Daisy Snelson as Edith is radiant and charismatic, coping with the role’s hefty demands whilst delivering the uncomfortable uncertainty about Edith’s character. Dominic Sullivan brings naive swagger and an uncanny physical likeness to Freddy Bywaters.
Dora Gee and Alex Cosgriff round out the ensemble ostensibly as Edith’s younger sister and her husband respectively, but both show incredible range and versatility as they deliver journalists, judges and jury members too. Cosgriff, in particular, flips from grunting discontent, through to high-camp gossip, all the way to blistering anger with ease.
Anchoring the story, older Avis Graydon is played by Sue Kelvin in a reflective narrator role. She’s on stage throughout, seated centrally, yet judges her role’s involvement impeccably. There is gravitas and thought-provoking commentary here without dogged dominance.
It all comes together in a compelling and entertaining package: rich in interesting details, well-constructed, directed, staged and performed. The show’s weakness, however, is its ending. This being a true story, it struggles to arrive at a moral conclusion of its own, sharing its final word with too many of its characters: the audience suddenly nervously applauding the last four numbers under the impression that the show is coming to a close.
Once again, Upstairs the Gatehouse punches well above its weight, presenting polished new musical theatre in an intimate setting. With judicious cuts, particularly to the show’s close, and a rethink of the misleading marketing strapline, this is most certainly a murder that will entertain many more audiences to come.
Runs until 10 May 2026
