Peter James has deservedly been a mega-best selling author for quite a few years now and after having started out as a writer of 'horror' novels changed his tact and created a best selling series of crime novels featuring D.S. Roy Grace. This play is an adaption of one of them and stage adaptor Shaun McKenna seems to have done a pretty good job here!

The play starts in suitably chilly mode when a murder is committed in the first few minutes, victim being one Katie Bishop (Charlotte Sutherland). Shortly afterwards there is another little surprise at the local mortuary, where most of the action takes place - but that would be telling. Here D.S. Roy Grace (Bill Ward) has a real humdinger on his hands with suspected murderer Brian Bishop (Stephen Billington) who adamantly protests his innocence and claims to have been in a different town altogether at the time his unfortunate wife was murdered. Meanwhile, pathologist Cleo Morey (Laura Whitmore) and D.S. Grace seem very much involved with one another – a fact that sweetens the increasingly complex interrogation during which Bishop sticks to his guns and continues to claim his innocence. However, when it emerges that fellow pathologist Sophie Harington (Gemma Atkins) not only knew the deceased Katie Bishop but claims to be in love with Mr. Bishop, things soon spin out of control as Sophie provides an alibi that contradicts the statements of her lover… D.S. Grace rightly concludes that there ought to be much more to the case and his suspicions are proven right when a short time later, Sophie is discovered brutally murdered in the mortuary wearing the same gas mask which was discovered on the corpse of Katie Bishop, together with yet another note that says “Because you love her”. As the noose seems to tighten around Bishop’s neck, the first surprise twist is unleashed upon the audience: it transpires that Brian Bishop had an identical twin brother (hence the same DNA) but that brother is dead… killed in action in Afghanistan. Does this mean that Brian, a seemingly psychopathic man somewhere between Norman Bates and Ted Bundy, is the killer after all and that he might suffer from schizophrenia? Or could it be that the allegedly dead brother is simply not dead enough? Trust Peter James to cough up surprise twists that no one sees coming…
It is rather tricky to reveal too much as the cat has to be kept in the bag so to speak. Sleuth and The Mousetrap might be mentioned in the same vein. Peter James name, nevertheless, is one that has come to mean quality. He has always been interested in the subject of that most brutal of crimes: MURDER! And like his best-selling contemporary Martina Cole he actually visits prisons and talks to real-life murderers. The man knows what he’s writing about!

Bill Ward and Laura Whitmore are convincing as Roy Grace and Cleo Morley respectively, while Charlotte Sutherland's solicitor ‘Lara Lloyd’ is perhaps a little too emotional for someone in that profession. But it is Stephen Billington's day as the seemingly dangerous and bonkers Brian Bishop (such parts are, of course, always the best)! Well worth checking out and there’s a strong possibility that this play will remain in the repertoire.

NOT DEAD ENOUGH runs until April 29th (www.edtheatres.com)
(Photo by Mark Douet)

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