Twists galore in chilling thriller
The Final Twist by Ken Whitmore and Alfred Bradley is the classic thriller season’s fourth offering at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, until Saturday night.
Set in the luscious living room of classic actor Merlin Foster’s country cottage, it has plenty of twists and turns, double crossing and lots of laughs.
This three-hander, directed at a cracking pace by Karen Henson, is hammed up extraordinarily well and had the audience in fits of giggles from start to finish, making this play the best one yet.
Adrian Lloyd-James is born for the role of Sir Merlin Foster, a classically trained actor who has had six wives and a successful career.
He wants to play one more role — the lead in a murder mystery at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, written by playwright Charlie Nicholson (Samuel Clemens).
Merlin wants Charlie to come up with a play so he can kill his wife, Eden Dundee (Sarah Wynne Kordas) and carry it out to the letter, but not all is as it seems.
Lloyd-James is excellent as the outlandish actor, barking out orders when others do not see things his way, Clemens is great as the nervous playwright who has an enforcer after him, and Kordas makes a wonderful Scottish actress who is devoted to Merlin.
With great atmospheric music, the play keeps you guessing until the very end. The final play next week is Shock! — DAB. Newark Advertiser
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The play, clearly derivative – think A Twist in the Tale – is about the construction of a murder thriller deliberately intended to mirror closely the real life situation and characters of those who are going to appear in it. But the make-believe thriller seems so disturbingly near the bone that some of the characters, and of course the audience, wonder to what extent it's a real-life murder being set up.
Sir Merlin Foster (played by Adrian Lloyd-James), a vain, pompous and self-regarding famous classical actor, with a string of flops and ex-wives behind him, hires a struggling playwright, Charley (Samuel Clemens) to come up with a plot involving wife murder.
Lloyd-James, tall, and bald in this one, is funny in his awfulness. Sarah Wynne Kordas, as the horsey and fetching Scots wife Eden Dundee, is entirely engaging. Clemens's performance as Charley Nicholson, darkly down at heel, unshaven, and lacking in confidence, is excellent. The scenes between Clemens and Wynne Kordas are nicely done; there's unspoken eroticism in the air.
Geoff Gilder's set, a cool and creamy cottage living room, is superb; the music is Mozart – even Foster's doorbell plays Mozart – augmented by more modern, cool and murderous stuff.
There is indeed a final twist in this play, and more twists besides. But it isn't simply the surprises that make this a most entertaining evening.
Alan Geary EVENING POST/THIS IS NOTTINGHAM
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Play weaves a tangled web
‘I’m not unreasonable,’ says Adrian Lloyd James’s character in The Final Twist. ‘All I ask for is total control.’
He’s only a self-aggrandizing, egocentric, world-famous actor-manager after all. The character, I mean, not Adrian. Of course.
One bit of of the above applies, though. As co-founder of Tabs Productions, he helps bring this witty corkscrew of a play to the Pomegranate this week: their 100th production there since their formation in 1989.
Adrian is joined on stage by Sarah Wynne Kordas as his feisty young actress wife, and Sam Clemens as a young playwright with writers’ block and a gambling problem.
The playwright is commissioned to devise a play – and what do you know, it’s about an egocentric actor-manager and his feisty young actress wife! In the written drama he plots to kill her – and in the one they’re in, he plots... Or does he?
The result is a merry old tangle of twists and laughs.
Lynne Patrick DERBYSHIRE TIMES
Set in the luscious living room of classic actor Merlin Foster’s country cottage, it has plenty of twists and turns, double crossing and lots of laughs.
This three-hander, directed at a cracking pace by Karen Henson, is hammed up extraordinarily well and had the audience in fits of giggles from start to finish, making this play the best one yet.
Adrian Lloyd-James is born for the role of Sir Merlin Foster, a classically trained actor who has had six wives and a successful career.
He wants to play one more role — the lead in a murder mystery at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, written by playwright Charlie Nicholson (Samuel Clemens).
Merlin wants Charlie to come up with a play so he can kill his wife, Eden Dundee (Sarah Wynne Kordas) and carry it out to the letter, but not all is as it seems.
Lloyd-James is excellent as the outlandish actor, barking out orders when others do not see things his way, Clemens is great as the nervous playwright who has an enforcer after him, and Kordas makes a wonderful Scottish actress who is devoted to Merlin.
With great atmospheric music, the play keeps you guessing until the very end. The final play next week is Shock! — DAB. Newark Advertiser
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The play, clearly derivative – think A Twist in the Tale – is about the construction of a murder thriller deliberately intended to mirror closely the real life situation and characters of those who are going to appear in it. But the make-believe thriller seems so disturbingly near the bone that some of the characters, and of course the audience, wonder to what extent it's a real-life murder being set up.
Sir Merlin Foster (played by Adrian Lloyd-James), a vain, pompous and self-regarding famous classical actor, with a string of flops and ex-wives behind him, hires a struggling playwright, Charley (Samuel Clemens) to come up with a plot involving wife murder.
Lloyd-James, tall, and bald in this one, is funny in his awfulness. Sarah Wynne Kordas, as the horsey and fetching Scots wife Eden Dundee, is entirely engaging. Clemens's performance as Charley Nicholson, darkly down at heel, unshaven, and lacking in confidence, is excellent. The scenes between Clemens and Wynne Kordas are nicely done; there's unspoken eroticism in the air.
Geoff Gilder's set, a cool and creamy cottage living room, is superb; the music is Mozart – even Foster's doorbell plays Mozart – augmented by more modern, cool and murderous stuff.
There is indeed a final twist in this play, and more twists besides. But it isn't simply the surprises that make this a most entertaining evening.
Alan Geary EVENING POST/THIS IS NOTTINGHAM
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Play weaves a tangled web
‘I’m not unreasonable,’ says Adrian Lloyd James’s character in The Final Twist. ‘All I ask for is total control.’
He’s only a self-aggrandizing, egocentric, world-famous actor-manager after all. The character, I mean, not Adrian. Of course.
One bit of of the above applies, though. As co-founder of Tabs Productions, he helps bring this witty corkscrew of a play to the Pomegranate this week: their 100th production there since their formation in 1989.
Adrian is joined on stage by Sarah Wynne Kordas as his feisty young actress wife, and Sam Clemens as a young playwright with writers’ block and a gambling problem.
The playwright is commissioned to devise a play – and what do you know, it’s about an egocentric actor-manager and his feisty young actress wife! In the written drama he plots to kill her – and in the one they’re in, he plots... Or does he?
The result is a merry old tangle of twists and laughs.
Lynne Patrick DERBYSHIRE TIMES