Skip to main content

Review of Dial M For Mayhem! at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

Middle Ground Theatre has been creating unique and intrepid adventures for the stage since the late eighties, and with Dial M For Mayhem!, they take those experiences and bring to the stage a brand new play within a play now arriving for a week run at Royal & Derngate.

Written by Margaret May Hobbs and directed by Michael Lunney, Dial M For Mayhem! has much to admire. Still, sadly, for every good joke, amusing set piece and chaotic moment, there are too many periods of flatness, stilted sequences and, especially during the first act, too many slow scenes which either tread the same old ground or bring nothing new to the proceedings and then fail to flow into the next leaving it often disjointed.

The cast does their very best, though, and the characters they bring to the stage are entertaining and perfect for this farcical play, but they lack depth despite the script trying desperately at times to give them one. The attempt to create character also comes at the expense of the farce and the potentially best part of the show, as the writer tries desperately to form relationships and emotion with the characters, especially in the final, rather limp scene where revelations indeed are revelations as very little seems to have been evident beforehand.

From the cast, the best are the elder stalwarts, including Estrid Barton as Jean, the earnest busybody of the community, ready with all the knowledge of comings-goings and rumbling storage heaters. Alasdair Baker is also excellent as the diminishing star of stage and screen Rupert. The rest are great at what they have, but they are saddled with sadly underwritten characters, just as if they are from a sketch in a sketch show rather than a rounded play character, like the AA Man, for instance, or a woeful Scottish resident who brings only awkwardness to the stage rather than entertainment in their brief scene.

Michael Lunney's set creates the style of a wafer-thin touring company set and flips perfectly to allow the reversal for the second act of working behind the scenes, including avoiding blindspots for the best part for the audience where we see scenes live which we have previously experienced in first act rehearsal.

For all its faults, though, I did enjoy Dial M For Mayhem!, although I do not entirely know why. Perhaps because it has a rather lovely quaintness, which taps through the critique within, it is a bit apt that Middle Ground has a little middle-ground standard play here, but no question, it's worth the effort for a big theatre fan. Still, for an occasional goer, you might find many better alternatives out there.

Full of faults but still a surprisingly entertaining farce.

Performance reviewed: Monday, 3rd February 2025, at the Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton.

Dial M For Mayhem! is on stage at Royal & Derngate until Saturday, 8th February 2025.

For further details about the Royal & Derngate and to book tickets, see their website at http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk

Photos: Marcus Fernando for Middle Ground Theatre Company


Popular posts from this blog

Review of Lord Of The Dance at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The stage show Lord of the Dance possibly needs little introduction to most people, as it has become a legend and now, in this touring version, subtitled rather immodestly, 25 Years of Standing Ovations, it reaches a landmark anniversary. Those that do not know of the show would probably well know its spiritual fathers Michael Flatley, and even more likely Riverdance , from which Lord of the Dance sprung with a proper spring in its step. During the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest, Riverdance hit the world by storm as Michael Flatley and his troop of dancers possibly presented the most famous part of Eurovision ever, certainly of the non-singing variety at least. Here, this touring show brings that same style Flatley created from traditional Irish dancing across the country once again and it is truly something special to see. The concept of the show is simply a battle between good and evil told through dance, and some captivating and stunning songs performed by Celyn Cartw...

Review of Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

The Rambert Dance Company is the oldest such company in Britain having first performed in 1926. However, despite this, this was my first encounter with the group in my ten years of theatre-going. Coupled with this, it was also my first encounter with Peaky Blinders , having never seen the show, and only knowing a few vague things about it. My companion for the evening however was very familiar with the show, allowing some background behind the show. It turns out though,  Rambert Dance in Peaky Blinders - The Redemption of Thomas Shelby needs a little more than a good bit of knowledge of the show, as despite this production having incredible style, there struggles to be a cohesive structure to the show and the storytelling. Much more than other dance shows as well. The first act does a whistle-stop tour of the first five seasons and while it is a feast on the eye, and on the ear, it gets extremely confusing at times. The second act is freestyle and drifts away from the stories tol...

Review of My Mother's Funeral: The Show at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

The title My Mother's Funeral: The Show is perhaps not the most attractive title for a theatre show, however, this show had great success at the Edinburgh Fringe and now arriving at Royal & Derngate, one of its co-producing theatres, so, let's look beyond the unusual title and see what lies beneath. Abigail is a theatre dramatist pursuing plays that the theatres no longer want. Her "gay bugs in space" saga falls foul of being fiction for a start, something a theatre director states audiences no longer want stating they want gritty, real experiences, theatre with painful truths. So, after Abigail devastatingly loses her mother and finds no money to pay the funeral fees, she pursues the creation of a very personal theatre show. My Mother's Funeral: The Show is gritty and sad, but, also in many ways very funny, if in a dark way. Writer Kelly Jones digs deep into the world of poverty in Dagenham and countless estates across the country. A world of people born in...