Despite some brief and painfully hammy support from veteran actors Neil Crofting and Mona Williams, the show belongs to the young leads, who’ll have no appeal whatsoever to older audiences. Ella Maltby’s superbly evocative Gothic set designs and extravagant period costuming from Larry Hayes notwithstanding, the overmiked sound makes it unbearable for anyone above the iPod generation, especially when the absurd plot twists start kicking in after the intermission.
The fault lies largely with the New Strand Theatre’s Russell Haddon, whose misjudged blood-and-thunder direction renders the actors’ Grand Guignol posturing ludicrous and turns the plot into some kind of teenage multiplex action movie. First-time author Ray Pryce provides clever dialogue that bristles with ironic epithets, but his lines are lost under a welter of overblown effects that include a stabbing, torture, nudity and a grotesquely realistic hanging. None of this will make a jot of difference to the youngsters who will flock in droves to see this monstrously distasteful catalogue of lurid thrills, especially as the second half features a scene in which Miss Fortess dances naked for her lover in the most gratuitous nude scene I have ever witnessed on stage. The soap star’s ample charms will doubtless prove a useful distraction from the play’s many faults. Meanwhile, the company has already announced a new production, God help us, and at least author Pryce will once more be on hand to ensure that the script provides frissons, even if the director is unable to rise to the occasion.
The Two Murderers New Strand Theatre, Adam Street, WC2 Perfs 7:30pm (exc. Sundays, Mats: Weds, Sats)
“The bastard has the nerve to show up at my house, witnesses our private grief and then prints these two items right next to each other!”
In the manager’s office above the New Strand Theatre, Robert Kramer threw the newspaper across the desk to Gregory Baine, his accountant and producer. “‘Unable to rise to the occasion’ – Lansdale knows we had trouble conceiving because of my low sperm count. My wife was stupid enough to tell him.”
“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t mean it to read like – ”
“Of course he bloody did!” Kramer bit back. “Read the second piece.”
Baby in Horror Fall
An 11-month-old baby boy fell to his death from an open sixth-floor window in central London last night. Noah Kramer, son of millionaire theatre owner Robert ‘Julius’ Kramer, 47, and his second wife Judith Kramer, 26, were hosting a lavish first-night party to mark the opening of their play The Two Murderers when tragedy struck.
An ambulance was dispatched to the £3.5 million penthouse at around 9:30 p.m. Officers are at a loss to explain how baby Noah reached the window, which the parents insist was securely locked, or why it had been opened during the torrential rainstorm that hit central London last night. “The couple had given their nanny the night off and were downstairs celebrating with celebrity guests when Noah somehow found his way to the window,” said a close friend. “Judith is devastated.” The police want to know why the baby was left alone by an open window, and will have no choice but to treat the death as suspicious.
Kramer’s first play at London’s newly opened New Strand Theatre is a gruesome horror-drama that is not for the fainthearted, and has received a critical drubbing.
“You can see what he’s implying, can’t you?” said Kramer. “That the show is somehow paralleled in our private lives. And that we deliberately neglected our own child. ‘Left by an open window’, ‘celebrating with celebrity guests’, ‘Judith is devastated’ – no mention of my grief. And putting our ages and the price of the property in the bloody article! Apart from anything else, the place is worth four million at least. This is obviously Lansdale’s work, although I don’t know what they think they’re doing, getting a bloody theatre critic to write the news. I got him his first job on the Telegraph and this is how he treats me. Well, I want him kept out of my theatre from now on.”
“How’s Judith doing?” asked Baine. He wasn’t really interested, but felt that Kramer would expect to be asked.
“How do you think she’s doing? She’s inconsolable. She’s been dosed to the gills with Valium and has taken to her bed. I can’t go to the theatre while this is going on. We can’t even plan the funeral until some coroner has finished poking about with the body. It’s a bloody nightmare! And now the press are working some kind of neglect angle, things can only get worse.”
“Everything’s under control at the theatre. We had a bit of a flood after the storm but we’re working on that. The box office is healthy. I hate to say it, but the coverage of the accident has raised your profile.”
“My wife has just lost her child. Show some bloody respect.”
Baine shrugged. “I’m an accountant, Robert, it’s how I see the world. Bad for you, good for business.”
♦
“What are we going to say?” asked Marcus Sigler. “They’re going to find out that we were together on the fire escape when they compare notes.” He and Gail Strong were seated outside a coffee shop on Upper Street, Islington. Gail was wearing absurdly huge Audrey Hepburn glasses that drew attention to her.
“You don’t need to sound so worried.” She took a drag on her cigarette and jetted smoke away from him. “I lied to that stupid policewoman about the timings, the one who looked like a model from the sixties. I told her I was out there after you, and passed you coming in as I went out.”
“Christ, what if somebody else saw us and contradicts your testimony? When were you going to tell me this? You know my situation. They’ve got everyone else’s times. If there’s a mismatch, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
“Grow yourself some gonads, Marcus. I’m just going to stick to my story. No one can prove we were outside together, and so what if we were? Strangers take cigarette breaks in each other’s company all the time.”
“They’ll know something was going on. Judith will know. Women can sense these things.”
“Judith’s virtually in a coma, in case you haven’t heard.”
“She’s probably been prescribed something to calm her down. You can’t imagine how bad I feel about this.”
“It didn’t seem to bother you at the time. That’s what cracks me up about men. You never think things through.”
“If this gets out I could have my contract cancelled.”
“I forgot, it’s all about you, isn’t it?”
“Well, it rather is in this case.”
“What do you mean?”
“Give me one of those.” He pointed at her Marlboro Lights. “I thought you understood. I thought that was the whole point.”
“Understood what?”
“Well.” Marcus fussed about trying to light the cigarette. There are few sights as spectacular as a handsome man embarrassed. “That Judith and I are an item.”
“No, somehow you never got around to mentioning that.”
“We met at her best friend’s wedding in Gloucester and spent the night together. In the morning, she told me that Robert had already proposed to her. I tried to stop seeing her, but it’s kind of still going on.”
“Kind of? How could you have let that happen if she was about to marry someone else?”
“I don’t know. We really do care for each other. I guess it was just bad timing for both of us. I mean, I made love to her the night before her wedding to Robert. But since then things have got even weirder. I’m starting to get this feeling he knows something’s going on.”
“So, what the hell happened between us on the fire escape?”
“I was a bit drunk, and you came on to me.”