Cluedo 2
The Lowry
Iconic murder mystery boardgame Cluedo has already been adapted into a film (a cult classic with Tim Curry no less!), multiple television shows, musicals and in 2022 a play directed by Mark Bell who is best known for directing The Play That Goes Wrong. Now, Cluedo 2 is following the success of the 2022 play with a semi-sequel written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, with Mark Bell returning as the director.
The concept of Cluedo 2 is the same as the first one, someone has been murdered but who is the culprit? This production though is not a direct sequel, with no continuation of storyline from the previous show. The characters, as you would expect, are the same (it wouldn’t be Cluedo without Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett), but the action is set in the 1960’s at the home of washed up musician Rick Black.
Our expectations going into this show were high. The reviews from Cluedo were good, we’re fans of The Goes Wrong productions, and we’re huge fans of both whodunnits and boardgames. On paper, this was perfect for us. In reality, the show was so disappointing that we did something we have never done before; we left at the interval.
Before we receive cries of “I can’t believe you left halfway through” and “how can you do a review if you didn’t watch it all”, we’re obviously only going to discuss the elements we did see. We didn’t make the decision to leave lightly, as you can read in our review of The Crown Jewels we have sat through productions that we didn’t enjoy, but this wasn’t just an unenjoyable show, it was downright uncomfortable.
For the most part, the cast is made up of seasoned stage actors with a third of the cast graduating from LAMDA. Jason Durr, possibly best known for his role in Heartbeat, stars as Colonel Mustard alongside Strictly Come Dancing winner Ellie Leach who makes her stage debut as Miss Scarlett. Every member of the cast has multiple acting credits to their name, and yet, we have never watched more wooden, stilted, and unfortunately just bad acting in any production. Liam Horrigan playing the dead body of Rick Black brought the most life to any of the characters, and he died within the opening 10 minutes.
Alongside the poor acting, the pace of the entire production was also completely off. Scene changes are conducted by the cast on the stage, with one character having a freeze frame moment in the spot light as the scenery is changed around them. Whilst an interesting idea, there is so much scenery that sometimes this went on for an uncomfortable amount of time. The result was a stunted delivery, and a total lack of flow between the scenes.
One particular extended scene change featured the cast supposedly moving around the mansion. As some of the cast slow walked across the stage, other members held up paintings to signify the artwork on the hallways that they were passing through. The same paintings cropped up again and again, with the character of Wadsworth (Jack Bennett) giving a “have I passed this one before?” double take to the audience, reminiscent of an episode of Scooby Doo. The entire section went on for far too long. What was apparently intended to be a laugh out loud moment was met with a smattering of applause from the audience, which ended up being more uncomfortable than had the few who applauded just remained silent.
The level of humour within the play is also questionable at best. Colonel Mustard and Reverend Green are both American in the play, with far too much time being dedicated to the differences between American and British English. There’s also a couple of recurring jokes that the butler isn’t actually a butler, but an actor playing the role of a butler, and that the Reverend ‘Hal’ Green is continually confused with the singer Al Green. Both of these recurring jokes wore very thin, very quickly.
The most questionable humour choice for us though was around the Reverend Green who is an American veteran who served in Vietnam. On a couple of occasions, the character references Vietnam and PTSD, most notably when a noise reminiscent of helicopters sees him throw himself to the floor. Is mocking mental health, particularly veteran mental health, really the best that the writers could come up with? There’s enough stigma in the world around mental health without adding to it in the name of comedy.
There was one element of the play that we enjoyed, and that was the giant Cluedo board at the back of the stage. We thought that was beautifully re-created as part of the scenery, but was unfortunately not utilised enough. A section of the board would light up corresponding to the room that the action on stage was taking place in. Unfortunately, this wasn’t always visible for everyone. We only realised part way through the first act that sections were being lit up, as some of the other sets and scenery blocked part of the board. Had the board been unobstructed and further forward on the stage, or brought on in some way to hide the set changes, this would probably have worked much better.
The production almost felt as if it was a work in progress, and the audience were there as a focus group to provide feedback. There certainly appears to have been some adaptations to the script since Ellie Leach was announced as the replacement Miss Scarlett (Helen Flannigan had originally been cast in the role but dropped out on medical grounds). On one particular exit from the stage, Miss Scarlett dances off (possibly a Tango, but we’re not ballroom dancers to know for certain), in what was a very obvious “remember she was on Strictly” move. The dancing added nothing to the storyline, or indeed appeared to have any relevance which is why we believe this was an extra addition to utilise (or cash in) on Leach’s newly acquired skills.
As we left at the interval, we’ve no idea if the second half saw a complete change of pace and direction. From those who we’ve spoken to, the second half continued in much the same fashion as the first. We certainly weren’t the only people to leave the show though.
During the first half, we saw one gentleman groan and then proceed to leave the auditorium. Unfortunately, he was around row E and centre stage, so to leave he had to ask everyone around him to stand up. He never returned. We also had to queue to pay for the car park. The queue was entirely made up of people clutching Cluedo 2 programmes and looking disappointed. By leaving early we’ll never know who did it, but worst of all, we quickly realised we don’t even care.
Lead pipe, candlestick, poor writing or poor acting? We’re not sure what the cause of death was for this production, but certainly nobody died laughing.
If you would like to watch Cluedo 2 and judge for yourself, the show is touring until November 2024. Full details of the tour can be found on the Cluedo 2 website. Future North West performances are Blackpool and New Brighton in the Autumn.
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