Common Ground have fun with nuns

Posted on 8th January 2023

The Common Ground Theatre Company specialises in the dramatization of challenging classic texts, fearlessly tackling the likes of Coleridge, Poe and Dostoevsky. Their shows make for intellectually nourishing and wonderfully enlightening evenings that educate as much as entertain. Once a year, however, they offer their audience something quite different – pitched somewhere between parody and panto, their Christmas shows have become a genuine highlight of the season.

A Murder at St Muttley’s must be the silliest yet, as Hercule Poudrot and Captain Darcy investigate the disappearance of a Bishop in a Nunnery, a splendidly ludicrous plot that requires the cast members to channel their inner nun to hilarious effect. It must also be one of their sauciest, with Pat Wymark’s script offering up a stream of double entendres that would have had Sid James blushing. Julian Harries was particularly adept as slipping quite outrageous quips under the radar (helped no doubt by his distracting wimple) but the whole cast served Wymark’s text well. Ben Elder’s puppyish Darcy was a perfect foil to Joe Leat’s dead pan Poudrot, while Kate Hunter’s dual playing of the gushing Miss Lupin and Sister Hildegard was a delight. With each player taking on several parts, much was made of the limits of a small cast, as ragged costume changes and knowing winks broke the fourth wall to winning effect.

The production was undoubtedly helped along by a handsome set design and sparing, but effective,  lighting and theatrical haze, while a judicious sprinkling of songs provided a welcome sorbet from the mayhem. But for all its clever bon mots, ridiculous jokes and daft plot twists, the abiding enjoyment of this production came from watching a cast that were obviously having so much fun that it couldn’t help but be infectious.