DIAL M FOR MURDER, AT THE ADC
The Guardian theatre critic, Michael Grosvenor Myer, once said of a Footlights show (something like), ‘The second half may have been one of the wonders of the stage, alas I shall never know’. I shared his experience at last night’s production by students of ‘Dial M for Murder’. Of the production itself I will say very little except for this: why choose this play by Frederick Knott written in the early 1950s? It was quickly made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock and starred Grace Kelly as the rich socialite Margot and Ray Milland has her scheming, charmingly sinister husband Tony. It was not a Hitchcock classic. The reason was the writing and the plot. Knott ‘adapted’ his creaky play for the Hollywood version but it remained as a supremely talky talkie. There is very little action, a smidgeon of jeapordy and an awful lot of jiggery-pokery around the plot twist which concerns itself with a number of door keys. It’s a shame that one of those keys didn’t lock up the studio so that this tedious film could never have been made.
I won’t bore you with the plot – why should you suffer? Suffice to say it’s about Tony’s scheme to have his wealthy missus murdered and when the scheme goes wrong, have her accused of bumping off her assailant. Her innocence hangs around that blessed malarky with the door keys and if you have time in your life to watch the film, and understand the verbally driven plot then you’re a better human than me.
Knott’s theatrical stasis is set in the favourite haunt of Shaftesbury Avenue, the living room of a posh apartment in Maida Vale. Three items give the slow game away: the essential drinks cabinet (vital for getting the actors off their communal butts), the settee (from where the aforesaid butts spend most of the ‘action’) and a writing desk on which is an old dialling telephone – ‘dial M for Murder’ of course. There are the essential French windows for quick but shady ingress and an abundance of home lighting units which can be turned up and down for dramatic effect.
Three other characters inhabit this world of ‘I say old chap’ and ‘why don’t you sit down my dear’. Max, an American former lover of Margot who happens to be visiting his old flame when the plot to do her in is about to begin. He, conveniently, is a writer of crime fiction and an expert in creating on paper, the ‘perfect murder’. That is unlucky for Tony. We see Swann, an old school pal of Tony’s fallen on hard times and prepared for cash to do the nasty deed (really??) and perhaps the star of the play, Chief Inspector Hubbard, a clipped gentleman ‘tec whose outward bumbling appearance pre-dates the TV Colombo. He even has the latter’s classic leaving line as he dons his titfer, ‘Sir, just one more thing’.
Hubbard is not that good as poor Margot is accused of murdering Swann (don’t ask) with a pair of scissors and sentenced to be hanged. The denouement in which Margot is saved involves those blessed keys and a totally unbelievable counter plot. Actually if you do get to see the old movie, John Williams as the detective, is the saving grace – a very funny turn by the proto Colombo.
That said, the wooden performance by Grace Kelly with her ‘darling’ this and ‘dahling’ that is a disappointment and Ray Milland seems too avuncular to be an evil genius. There must be hundreds of thrillers and mysteries to choose other than this old relic. The only mystery here is why it is still performed. Perhaps it should be retitled, ‘Dial M for Moribund’.
