Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts at Oxford New Theatre.
When the curtain goes up on House of Ghosts, some people in the audience might wonder for a moment whether they've come to the wrong show. We find ourselves in the middle of a familiar scene from a Shakespeare play - one of the most familiar in the whole dramatic repertoire - and then we see it go startlingly wrong. The wrong character dies, in the wrong way, at a totally unexpected moment... and the actor is really dead. What the hell is going on?
There is consternation, but fortunately Inspector Morse himself is in the audience and springs forward to take charge of the situation. Everything is under control.
The mystery that unfolds is tortuous and convoluted, and keeps us guessing to the last. There are amusing characters - the philandering director, the priest with a guilty secret, and of course a Don with something to hide. The ingenious story is by Alma Cullen, a dramatist who worked as a scriptwriter on the TV films based on Colin Dexter's original, classic detective novels. The production is by Birmingham Rep. (https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/)
Inspector Morse is Oxford's own detective, and the TV series made him a household name. Against a backdrop of Oxford's Gothic and mediaeval architecture, not to mention the old, character pubs he loved to frequent, he investigated crimes that revealed the sordid, deceptive, and often tragic side of everyday life. He was not a glamorous private detective but an honest copper, whose taste for opera revealed his secret cultured and romantic side.
I have a happy memory of meeting Colin Dexter about ten years ago (just before he died) when a friend took me to a meeting of the Oxford branch of the Society of Authors. Of course he was the celebrity of the gathering, but very affable and approachable.
When a writer, and a TV series, creates a larger-than life character like this, with many layers and dimensions, he truly becomes legendary. The death of Morse came as a terrible shock. TV just had to go back in time and present us with Endeavour, his younger self, more idealistic and less morose. All these dramas are still luckily available on DVD.
Tom Chambers is being brave in taking on this mantle. He's got the right looks, and he gets the movements and body language right. I'm going to suggest one thing to make his performance more effective - that he tries to drop his voice in pitch. In a stage production, we can't see the characters' faces very closely, and we need their voices to be different, not just in accent, though that helps. John Thaw, who acted the rôle on TV, had a baritone voice with a resonant timbre that contrasted with the lighter one of Lewis, and this sort of variety would help the stage dialogues to gain in impact. A deeper, more powerful voice would also add some gravitas to the figure of Morse himself. He needs to be ruminative and thoughtful.
Whether you are a Morse fan or new to the stories, this production is a bit of clever fun that provides a night out in dreary January. If the weather puts you off, book for a matinee! Swap your fireside for the Piano Bar of the New Theatre in George Street, order a Prosecco and dress to kill. Well, not literally of course.
Tickets from:-
https://www.atgtickets.com/venues/new-theatre-oxford/?