There is nothing finer than a good farce.

And this was a fantastic farce. A bloody, violent, raucous ‘with references to drugs’ farce, but a great farce, with humour at the forefront.

It’s New Year’s Eve in a quiet corner of Kent and a killer is in the house…

We meet Jonny ‘The Cyclops’ – the notorious gangster, his glamorous wife, his trigger-happy sidekick, his mum—who’s seeing things, her very jittery carer, plus a vicar who’s hiding something, and a nervous burglar dressed as a clown. 

Throw in a suitcase full of cash, a stash of deadly weapons, and one infamous unsolved murder… What could possibly go wrong?

Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s mid-January and I’m fed up. It’s a cliché to be fed up in mid-January but clichés evolve for a reason. What I thought I needed was a holiday in the sun, at least 5 more hours of daylight, a dial up in temperatures and some time apart from my big coat. What I actually needed was a good old dastardly, devilishly (the emphasis on devil) death by numbers.

And as one of the police officers in the opening, crime-scene states (or words to the effect) – if you were to write it, you wouldn’t believe it.

And so it was written, you don’t have to believe it, and nor do you need to. You escape from the winter weather, you take your seat in the wonderfully lesser visited Quays theatre at the Lowry, and you bid goodbye to the cruel, cruel woes of a season where you get 5 minutes sunlight if you’re lucky, and tread water in the darkness of the detox that has temporarily become your life.

And you have a right old laugh.

Murder at Midnight is a figurative recipe for farce. If you were to, say, enter a competition to rename this theatrical endeavour, you would surely plump for ‘Farcey McFarceface’. And you’d be right to as it has all the right ingredients:

• Man of the cloth, be it priest, vicar or reverend
• Saucy nun
• man with his trousers down
• numerous near-misses between characters as they narrowly avoid at best ‘awkward’ encounters
• a romp under a duvet
• a policeman
• a baddie in a mask (two actually)
• a circular chase scene between four or more people.

But the ingredient that brings it all together is laughter and there was much mirth to be had.

Each actor and character brought daftness, a rising hysteria and an element of ‘extra’ that grew with every line and scene until the ultimate bloody ending. And with a cross-section construct of a theatre set, we were guaranteed to miss not a single thing.

Katie McGlynn as loopy, luscious Lisa – girlfriend to gangster Jonny ‘The Cyclops’, and Max Bowden as her bed-fellow/undercover policeman, Paul – took on the mantle of being at the forefront of the action, ticking off most of the farce-listed criteria throughout the course of the two hours. And valiantly so.

Our aforementioned drug ‘lord’ (Jason Durr) was also a delight alongside possibly my favourite character of the night, Trainwreck (Peter Moreton). The drug-dealing, suspected murderer and, surreally, lover of Robbie Williams, Jonny, and his ‘henchman with a heart’ gave great to and fro, with more than one or two double bluffs and twists in the tale forthcoming from that direction.

One word. Travelodge.

But Susie Blake. Susie Blake, with far too many comedy and acting credits to mention, brought her inimitable je ne sais quois to proceedings, in her role as the devil-fearing, tarot-trusting, gentle of face, sharp of tongue Shirley, mother to her dear Jonny, and previous knocker-abouter with the Krays, no less.

And together with our desperate drug-stealing, intruder clown (aka Russell – Callum Balmforth), sweet, naive, ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ carer to Shirley, Cristina (Iryna Poplavska) and our poor two opening-scene police officers, left to survey the bloodied carnage from our flash-forward opening scene, we had ourselves an iconic collective of players who brought everything to the table to create a riotous, camp, knockabout comedy that isn’t for the squeamish.

And I haven’t even told you about Robbie and Rock DJ the rottweilers yet, have I (RIP)?

Go forth and give yourselves two hours of escapism, missteps, murder, mayhem, cross-bows and Coldplay (honest). You have until this Saturday 24 January.

For more details of the cast, creatives and for tickets, head to the Lowry website: https://thelowry.com/whats-on/murder-at-midnight-fvyq.

Written by Torben Betts – see Murder In The Dark

Directed by Philip Franks

Production credits: Pamela Raith photography