Eloise Snape and Jamie Oxenbould give it their all. Photo: Prudence Upton.
The most important thing to know about Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall is that it is eye-streamingly funny. Written by the Ensemble’s artistic director Mark Kilmurry and actor Jamie Oxenbould, it is a good-natured and uproarious send up of amateur theatre and why – or perhaps in this case, if – the show must go on. And really, it’s a send up of all theatrical pretensions – after all, the amateurs have plenty of role models (no aspersions cast).
To quote Kilmurry, who directs the piece: ‘Midnight Murder is everything we’ve experienced for at least 43 years, all together on one evening. Everything that could possibly go wrong does.’
Act 1 opens behind the scenes on opening night. Philippa (Eloise Snape), very much the absolute leading lady of the Middling Cove Players; Shane (Sam O’Sullivan), actor and also author of the murder mystery about to premiere; and Barney (Jamie Oxenbould), who would give up his day job at Harvey Norman at the drop of an agent’s hat, are about to learn that seven of the company’s cast are afflicted by the dreaded Covid. Their acerbic and pragmatic stage manager Karen (Ariadne Sgouros), who’s doing her community service at the theatre for crimes/misdemeanours unspecified, assumes the show will be cancelled. But…
Philippa is near hysterical, but Barney – whose assessment of his artistic abilities equals those of Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is sure he can play multiple roles. And it’s an important night: the Middling Cove Players need to impress the local councillors or they might lose the venue. Cancelling becomes out of the question. Shane agrees.
Juggling nerves, props, absurd miscasting and multiple casting, can they pull it off? The curtain goes up at the beginning of Act 2. And it is hilarious. For all the wrong reasons, of course. Snape is painfully funny, wielding recalcitrant cigarette holders at one minute, veering wildly from Irish to American accents in others, giving her all whether she is a matriarch or a misfit, dead or alive. Oxenbould is equally brilliant in his comic timing. Writing about it cannot do his performance – I should say performances as he goes from butler to colonel and other roles – justice. And Sgouros as the slightly mysterious Karen takes them both on. I wondered for a minute if she was going to be the star of the amateur show. Poor old Shane tries to keep them in check.
All the elements of farce are here, along with superb performances and great gags. A night out that makes you laugh till you cry can only be a good thing. As for the fate of the Middling Cove Players and their problems with the local council, I can only urge you to go along and find out for yourselves what happens.
All credit to a fine cast, tight direction, choreography (by assistant director Emma Canalese), a suitably clichéd set, complete with grandfather clock and bats (Simon Greer), and a very special observer in Toby Blome.
[Deliberately] bad timing, incompetence, and sweet optimism, plus people going to the immense effort to put on a show, purely for the love of the theatre… What’s not to love?
Midnight Murder at Hamlington Hall runs until 14 January 2024
Tickets $38-$80. More info: https://www.ensemble.com.au/shows/hamlington-hall
