Whodunnit [Unrehearsed] Park Theatre

How in any real sense of the word is Ronan Keating considered an actor???

Bit more worried about the idea of Tim Vine as an actor personally, even though I like him enormously.

Could be rather random!!

This is exactly the sort of idiotic stuff I LOVE.

Sounds jolly. Do you think they got the idea from a very successful and now international hit play now on in the West End? Nah, totally original.

The likelihood that the actor combination I want to see will be on a different night to the one I booked for and makes not booking the logical decision, as in both instances the outcome will be the same, I will not have seen the productions I wanted.

I’m sure all the actor combinations will work but the initial disappointment when the actor(s) aren’t the ones you wanted will be tough to dissipate during and impact your enjoyment of the evening.

In a similar scenario for Dear Elisabeth at the Gate earlier this year, Jade Anouka and Jonjo O’Neill the combination I would have wanted to see were there for the Press Night and it is likely the best combination will be reserved for the Press Night at the Park as well i.e. the names that piqued your interest in the endeavour.

Will monitor ticket sales and leave booking if I do until after the Press Night, the Park are on a hiding to nothing as revealing the actors beforehand would impact the booking pattern and the corollary is also most probably true.

You have obviously never seen "Tim Vine Travels In Time"!

Did anyone try for standing tickets for today's show? I'm wondering whether to try later this week and wondered if it was an easy process.

I wouldn't worry, whoever it is the fun comes from the actor being completely unprepared on stage and having to improvise/figure out the plot etc.  Even if you don't know who they are the concept itself is amusing.

Anyone who's won standing tickets - is it best to phone, try online or just not bother?!

There is no advantage to ringing, they only have access to the same website that you do, there isn't a separate booking system they have access to (from what we've been told).  Getting standing tickets to the weekday matinees isn't very difficult, the evenings are tough.

Thanks, yes I didn't get them today either! Unfortunately I can only do evenings, so will continue to fight it out and hope for the best.

I enjoyed this immensely at the matinee yesterday. Sandi Toksvig gave an astonishing performance, more tonally consistent (a gentle yet probing Hercule Poirot type) than anyone else in the show. You would have thought it was completely rehearsed, so good was she, demonstrating her skill as an improviser, used to thinking on her feet.

When someone is as good at appearing rehearsed as Toksvig is, it is like a time-delayed miracle, (delayed for about a second by having to absorb lines from an earpiece), and you feel dazzled and proud of their performance, but at the same time delighted when they are thrown, especially if the person being thrown is as humble and witty and gentle as Toksvig is. Some of the biggest laughs were when Toksvig addressed her lines to the wrong person (who knows if she was misdirected, undirected or simply couldn't keep up lol)!? Other huge laughs came from the rare but wonderful moments when the guest star was told to "improvise" something, moments which Toksvig responded to with aplomb being in the improvising game. So it was like Poirot, with teasing, a little corpsing, a few wry asides, and a feeling of sharing a unique bond and adventure between performer and audience.

Other performances were more variable, with the best comic performance by a league given by Patrick Ryecart as the stuffed up, bumbling, blurt-out-anything-you-like-whenever-you-like, wheezing, steaming, extreme-received-pronunciation posh head of household, Digby Dangle. He gets the most natural laughs per line of anybody, bar the special guest star. The best, most appealing naturalistic performance is by Natasha Cottriall as his precise and pleasing, precious and amusing daughter, Felicity Dangle.

All rehearsed performers struggled with their material somewhat due to an impreciseness of tone and insufficient characterisation. This is unsurprising given the method of conception of the piece, which was created by first writing it straight, for five days, as a genuine Agatha Christie style mystery, focused on plot over character, and then adding jokes of all varieties here, there and everywhere, in a scattershot and inconsistent way.

The very best possible laughs, which rely on an interplay of plot on defined characters, (such as in "The Play that Goes Wrong" when the brittle Henry Shields gets frustrated, or the ebullient Henry Lewis is overenthusiastic, or when the whinging Jonathan Sayer grates, etc) cannot be achieved here due to the lack of characterisation, and overemphasis on plot and mystery alone. To the bare bones of a pedestrian strait-laced mystery plot are added baser less effective laughs, such as double entendres (eg My name is Watt. What? Not What, Watt, etc), sound gags (eg French windows), and lots of mugging and jumping in and out of character.

The human element is key to enjoying this show, and is very much provided by the guest star, with a show a kind of psychological test of who and what they are under pressure, that allows the audience to admire their skills, and relate to the underlying personality under pressure of performing and imrovising.

Sandi Toksvig made for a marvellous subject, and the overall show was a 4 star delight.

PS: Getting tickets: -


So far there have been 5 shows, and the evening shows have featured the acts that are the biggest and widest draws. They have been:-

(1) Jim Broadbent - opening night
(2) Gyles Brandreth - first matinee (reviewed by Billington)
(3) Damian Lewis -second night
(4) Sandi Toksvig - yesterday's matinee
(5) Catherine Tate - yesterday night.

If I was trying to see Gillian Anderson, I'd probably try for a Saturday night, as those tickets were the most desired, most expensive, and quickest sold, and probably feature the wealthiest audience willing to bid the most money for any special prizes (2 people bid £1000 each yesterday, after the show, to spend an evening at QI with Sandi Toksvig, and have a drink with her afterwards). The whole run is a Park Theatre fundraiser, so it would make sense to schedule the biggest stars for the keenest and wealthiest audiences, assuming of course that Gillian Anderson is actually available on a Saturday night and hasn't insisted on being tucked away into a matinee lol.

Good luck, everyone.