PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

the egg, Bath (until Jan 8)

THEATRE It’s a formidable creative team that lies behind this year’s festive offering at the egg, as Lee Lyford (director), Hattie Naylor (writer), Hayley Grindle (design) and Paul Dodgson (music/lyrics) unite once again having already scored a hatful of hits with ‘The Nutcracker’ (which later transferred to the main house), ‘Around the Word in Eighty Days’ and ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’.

This time, somewhat boldly given December’s propensity for pumping out panto and overly-familiar family fare, ‘The French Detective…’ is a spanking piece of fresh new writing, making its global premiere, no less.

We enter in-the-round on an interwar Belgian village, whose inhabitants seem largely ill at ease with their mundane day-to-day occupations. When, without warning, a woman (who may or not be a masquerading trapeze artist) winds up all dead, the interests of a certain Detective Charcuterie (Chris Bianchi channelling Peter Sellers) and his resourceful young sidekick Minette (Flossie Ure) are spiked.

As further bodies pile up, and clues are steadily strewn, it seems we’re heading for something of a foregone conclusion, but Naylor keeps enough aces in the hole so adults, children and our singing sleuths are left guessing until the end. An end, by the way, that’s well worth waiting for, combining such skilled sleight-of-hand and big top escapology, that it was all too much for one junior front-rower who burst into tears of confusion at the sight of our “disappearing” heroine.

The general tenor – which borrows widely from Gordon Kaye, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Scooby Doo – feels cinematically nostalgic, the songs are packed with plenty of spring-heeled seasonal sprightliness and the ensemble of three – each of whom shuffle a number of parts – work extremely hard to keep the various balls in the air.

Disproving the hoary adage of working with children and animals, Ure gamely keeps pace with the adults in song and stature, but even she can’t compete with the audience-wowing titular blue mutt – who even, amazingly, remembers his single line on cue.

The ever exuberant egg theatre: top dogs again.

(Joe Spurgeon)

Copyright Joe Spurgeon 2011

Pic: Nick Spratling