BWW Reviews: ANYBODY FOR MURDER? Slays The Audiences At Rainbow Dinner Theatre

Brian Clemens is known to the English, and to American fans of English television, as the mastermind behind the cult classic series "The Avengers" and that other classic action series "The Professionals". He helped write "Secret Agent" (come on, if you're over a certain age you're humming the song.) He knows a thing or two about mystery and suspense, and was intensely popular at it on television.

He's less well known as a playwright of mysteries, suspense, and farces. But, with or without various co-writers, he's written sixteen plays ranging from a stage adaptation of "The Avengers" to the murder farce ANYBODY FOR MURDER? cowritten with Dennis Spooner. It's currently playing at Rainbow Dinner Theatre, where it's played, as it deserves, for every laugh it's worth.

Most of Clemens' plays were written in the early to mid-1970's, and the play is showing signs of age. Although updated to include smartphones and laptops, the play still has a few creaks due to age. Cynthia DiSavino's exceptionally lovely set evokes a Greek island villa of a certain period - that period being late 1960's - and everything, even with updating, still feels 1960's, sometimes in a slightly lumbering way. The most glaring example is that of Edgar Chambers, the English mystery author, a supporting character and one of the few residents of the island. If the character (played by Jimmy Cosentino) is intended to be gay, he's painfully, campily stereotypical to a nearly offensive degree in this day - and if he's not intended to be gay, but merely effeminate and sniggering, it's still bad. The mincing, eccentric "gay or British?" character really requires a bit of taming to be palatable these days.

But the cast is good, and the mystery proper is a bit of a "Columbo"-like reverse mystery. Everyone wants to kill Max's wife, Janet. Max, so he can run off with his once-and-current mistress, who's disguised herself as Janet. Mary and George Ticklewell, distant cousins, one a solicitor, so that they can take all of a fortune that should be shared with, or possibly claimed entirely, by Janet. Only Edgar has no reason to do her in. On the other hand, Edgar and Max, a former practicing chemist, share ways of doing people in to help Edgar with plots, and Edgar's current story is amazingly like what's really happening under his nose. Will anyone actually wind up dead? If so, will it be Janet, Max's mistress Suzy, or the Ticklewells? Who's really after whom? And how will the murder actually be committed?

As with "Columbo," the twists and turns are incredible, but there are no loose ends, and the ending is as farcical as one could wish. Bradley "Bing" Ingersoll is solid as Max, the American chemist who gave up his U.S. job for love, and Jennifer Hope is delightful as Janet, his English wife who persuaded him to become a vintner on a Greek island where the grapes are failing to produce. Sydney Leigh Allen is suitably comical as Suzy, Max's mistress, who's ditzy enough to make the whole plot fail miserably if she's not careful, and maybe even if she is. Diane Fussaro and Joe Winters are nicely cast as Mary and George Ticklewell, the force of nature who must be obeyed, and her henpecked husband.

By and large, DiSavino's direction is fine - the pacing is tight, the exits and entrances well-handled, the laughs where they should be. Only the toning-down of the Edgar Chambers character, which just isn't funny as extreme as it is, and a massage of some of the elderly creaking joints of the play, would improve it. The first act isn't as overtly, over-the-top hilarious as the second act, but there's a great deal of setup required to put all of the farcical events into play. Once everything's rolling, the comic elements are as nonstop as the plans to murder... someone. Which might be whichever one of the women is Janet, because it's suddenly none too clear to anyone but Max just who's Janet and who's Suzy once his plan has gone into effect.

Yes, it's great fun, and no, it isn't often done, which is a shame. But it's on at Rainbow through May 24, giving you a chance to discover the other side of the producer of "The Avengers" and to get a belly laugh or two on the process. ANYBODY FOR MURDER? might be bad for it's victim's health, but the laughs will be good for yours. Call 717-687-4300 or visit www.rainbowdinnertheatre.com for tickets and information.

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