Libby Hall’s contemporary ’Whodunnit’ currently playing at Salford Arts Theatre invites its audience into a typical Salford pub to witness the comings and goings of its regulars on a typical Friday night. All is as you would expect. The dart board looms, the juke box plays '80’s favourites, regulars cling to the bar, 2 young men spar over a game of pool, a stranger quietly sips his pint, banter flies around and the landlord holds court. All is well… or is it? When a dead body is found in the men’s toilets, a lock -in is enforced and will not end until the landlord has found out who has taken one of the snooker cues and inserted it into the now resident corpse.
What unfolds is a confident, entertaining and nuanced piece of writing that captures characters and community with skill, humour and honesty. It is real, comic, harshly funny.
Leading the cast, Scott T Berry as landlord presents a man we all immediately recognise and trust. He knows his pub, his regulars, his place. He is master of his world and has seen and heard it all many times before – until one of his regulars ends up skewered like a kebab in the loo.
Berry controls the action with good skill. He is our pivot, the one who guides us the through the proceedings as focus jumps from the engaging Cheryl (Elizabeth Poole) – the ex-wife of the deceased to Connor (Jake Talbot) and Ash (Joel Hill) – best friends who seemingly know everything and nothing about each other. Our attention is grabbed by Artois (Molly Edwards) the landlord’s woke-ly conflicted daughter and finally (and unsurprisingly) falls on The Stranger (Samuel Bates)
The joy of this piece is that the characters presented are all likeable and real, and the rapport within the cast is strong. Talbot and Hill successfully create the kind of young man double act we all know and love, Berry and Poole achieve a closeness of relationship that comes from decades of Friday nights spent in each other company and stories of their shared goings on, the most hilarious being the one when Cheryl gives birth by the juke box and landlord proudly presents her with a postpartum pint of Sterling lager after which she names her newly born son.
‘Snookered’ is littered with gem-like nuggets of the lives that pass through the bar without being saccharine or sentimental. It acknowledges that life is tough, people have chemo, use foodbanks and place their hope in their weekly lottery ticket. Local drug gangs threaten, people get mugged, robberies occur and Hall successfully creates a sanctuary-like space within the bar that protects from the toughness of the world outside, despite the occasional murder in the loos.
Roni Ellis’s direction is strong and well-paced and focus jumps around between characters with seamless skill and the question of whodunnit is handled with surprising sensitivity.
I enjoyed this well written piece of theatre and my time in the company the characters despite some of their homicidal tendencies. Catch it if you can.
Reviewer - Lou Kershaw
on - 28.6.23
Leading the cast, Scott T Berry as landlord presents a man we all immediately recognise and trust. He knows his pub, his regulars, his place. He is master of his world and has seen and heard it all many times before – until one of his regulars ends up skewered like a kebab in the loo.
Berry controls the action with good skill. He is our pivot, the one who guides us the through the proceedings as focus jumps from the engaging Cheryl (Elizabeth Poole) – the ex-wife of the deceased to Connor (Jake Talbot) and Ash (Joel Hill) – best friends who seemingly know everything and nothing about each other. Our attention is grabbed by Artois (Molly Edwards) the landlord’s woke-ly conflicted daughter and finally (and unsurprisingly) falls on The Stranger (Samuel Bates)
The joy of this piece is that the characters presented are all likeable and real, and the rapport within the cast is strong. Talbot and Hill successfully create the kind of young man double act we all know and love, Berry and Poole achieve a closeness of relationship that comes from decades of Friday nights spent in each other company and stories of their shared goings on, the most hilarious being the one when Cheryl gives birth by the juke box and landlord proudly presents her with a postpartum pint of Sterling lager after which she names her newly born son.
‘Snookered’ is littered with gem-like nuggets of the lives that pass through the bar without being saccharine or sentimental. It acknowledges that life is tough, people have chemo, use foodbanks and place their hope in their weekly lottery ticket. Local drug gangs threaten, people get mugged, robberies occur and Hall successfully creates a sanctuary-like space within the bar that protects from the toughness of the world outside, despite the occasional murder in the loos.
Roni Ellis’s direction is strong and well-paced and focus jumps around between characters with seamless skill and the question of whodunnit is handled with surprising sensitivity.
I enjoyed this well written piece of theatre and my time in the company the characters despite some of their homicidal tendencies. Catch it if you can.
Reviewer - Lou Kershaw
on - 28.6.23
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