I CANNOT really better the classic canard of the Addams family meets Agatha Christie when describing the play, A Tomb With A View, as it paints the picture perfectly.
For Skelmorlie Attic Players it was an ambitious masterstroke to re-emerge from lockdown - the last show was California Suite in 2019 - with this tour-de-force farce by Norman Robbins.
Let me say right away that there was no weakness on the acting front in the cast of 10 who carried the crazy fun at breakneck speed on the compact village stage. It couldn’t have worked as it did with any chinks in the chain. Bravo actors.
They hit the mark with deadly accuracy, if you'll pardon the pun, as five members of the ghoulish Tomb family were reduced to one standing by the end as bodies collapsed right, left and centre.
The strong start to the action was provided by the impressive Tom Macdougall as family solicitor Penworthy, and head of the Tomb clan Lucien, played both pompously and dimwittedly as to the manner born by Gordon Fyfe. Has an actor’s head ever been served on a platter before in front of an audience?
Tom Macdougall with his commendable projection and authority dictated the pace and fused the necessary interaction among the frantic ebb and flow of characters. The melodramatic mayhem ensued, when strangers, Ermentrude (Alison Goldie) and Peregrine (Stewart Macdougall) visited the house of horrors. As one family member remarked, “No-one ever spends the night here if they know us.”
Acting royalty in the form of Dora Tomb (Linda McMurray), dressed like a carrion crow, was the first convincing suspect. After all she poisoned her own mother, dismissed as “ah, well mistakes happen.” Linda glided effortlessly from scene to scene until her time was up!
And if you want a veritable, battleaxe character, step forward Donna Laing, an Attic stalwart. As “big mouth, bitch” Emily (not my words, of course) she bullied her way through the proceedings in not so much a jolly hockey sticks manner as a carnaptious battering ram.
To be honest, a fellow actor actually addressed her by her real name on opening night such was her energy and impact throughout. Dragging her ‘corpse’ off the stage proved especially amusing.
For anyone who remembers Angelika Houston as the alluring Morticia Addams in the movies, Linn Van Der Zanden was wonderfully cast as the sexy ‘hot lips’ Monica Tomb pouting her way through the play and with legs…well, yes, legs (I’ll leave it there).
Rehearsals must have been interesting as her love attraction was real life partner Stewart Macdougall. No wonder he played the nervous stranger so well before he held together and revealed the mystery ending which had us gripped.
Another Attic ‘veteran’ Stewart Phillips entertained us as Marcus Tomb, regaling the audience with Shakespearean quotes in his deluded guise as Caesar - until he was shot (spoiler) and lay sprawled on the stage in his white flowing toga, as someone remarked “he is losing a lot of blood”.
Well, you can’t get the costume dirty on your opening night. Incidentally you see more than you bargained for from the front row.
As if this kaleidoscope of characters was not enough, the barometer of fun rose every time Karen Willey entered as bossy cook Agatha with her put you down quips and laconic looks; an actor who overflowed with facial expression and gestures.
Coming into her own as the body count ratcheted up was Laura Newton as nurse Anne Franklin who proved not only to be central to the plot but a very confident character as we reached the grisly climax.
This non-stop nonsense over four acts was a real challenge for director William Clark-Ferguson, particularly as 10 actors criss-cross constantly but he can regard Tomb With A View as a triumph.
He even managed to inject a modern joke into the script with “you don’t drink, you don’t smoke - you’ll be saying you’re a vegan next.”
My favourite line, though, was possibly this: “We can put her in the rosebushes alongside the Morris dancing team.”
The technical team of Shona Phillips Richard Laing, Keith Agnew, Simon Dell, Graeme Ross, Matt West, Frances McGinlay, Ian Robertson, Andy Reid, and Donald MacLean deserve more than a special mention for the clever set and effects.
Another line from the play was "why are people still dying? It’s not amusing any more.” Actually, it was.
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