Tom Babbage, Etisyai Phillips, Wesley Griffiths, Laura Kirman, Jean-Luke Worrell, Michelle Collins, Judith Amsenga and Daniel Casey Cluedo photo Craig Sugden

Review: Cluedo at The Alexandra

This isn’t a sponsored post.
BrumHour was invited to see Cluedo by The Alexandra.

For Brum Radio’s Interval Theatre, Daniel Casey talked about playing Professor Plum in the UK Tour of Cluedo. Listen here:

By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour

This production contains some violence and gunfire.

Review: Cluedo at The Alexandra

⭐⭐⭐⭐Brilliantly Silly Fun

Directed by Mark Bell, written by Sandy Rustin, original screenplay by Jonathan Lynn

1949: A large manor in the home counties: A butler, Wadsworth (Jean-Luke Worrell) is welcoming six guests for dinner with Yvette (Laura Kirman) the not very French, French housemaid. Each of the six guests are using a pseudonym based upon a colour including Miss Scarlett (Michelle Collins) and Professor Plum (Daniel Casey). They discover they are being blackmailed by Mr Boddy (Harry Bradley) who tells the six they should kill Wadsworth and their troubles will go away. As he does he turns off the lights and a shot is fired.

Michelle Collins, Etisyai Phillips, Tom Babbage, Judith Amsenga and Daniel Casey Cluedo phoo by Craig Sugden

This is a play based on the American 1980s film Clue which in turn is based on the board game Cluedo created by Birmingham born Anthony E Pratt. I adored every last second of it. The premise is totally over the top and ridiculous. The acting is with a nod and a wink to the audience and the set movements come with timed choreography. It doesn’t stray too far from the film script, but does enough to make it more than just a relocation.

The film lasts just 94 minutes according to IMDB and five minutes of that are the opening credits so the story is told here pretty quickly, tonight we were done within one hour and 50 minutes. The only real added sequence is a traditional three-door farce which becomes a six-door farce here. (One room for each character.) I would like to have seen a few more inserted moments like this.

Daniel Casey, Laura Kirman, Tom, Babbage, Etisayi Phillips, Jean-Luke Worrell and Judith Amsenga Cluedo photo by Craig Sugden

The wonderful Michelle Collins is obviously fabulous here as the naughty Miss Scarlett filled with secrets about most of the men, whilst Daniel Casey is a much more British professor and his characters sleaze from the film is cleaned up here. The total scene-stealers here are Jean-Luke Worrell and Laura Kirman who both ham it right to the rafters.

There are several fourth wall breaks to the audience and tonight’s press performance featured an escaping moustache. The set with its three walled staging opens up like a board game to reveal the six rooms and there are even the secret passages to consider.

Tom Babbage, Etisyai Phillips, Wesley Griffiths, Laura Kirman, Jean-Luke Worrell, Michelle Collins, Judith Amsenga and Daniel Casey Cluedo photo by Craig Sugden

Like the board game, this is fairly family friendly for anyone above the age of 8 or 9 and is heaps of brilliantly silly fun. Cluedo is at The Alexandra until 7th May 2022.

The UK Tour currently continues until 23th July 2022, find out more here: cluedostageplay.com/book. See what is coming up at The Alexandra here: atgtickets.com/venues/the-alexandra-theatre-birmingham.

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