★★★
King’s Theatre, Edinburgh – until 18 February 2017
Then touring
Guest reviewer: Martin Gray
The Ruth Rendell murder tale A Judgement in Stone, at the King’s until Saturday, promises much but shoots itself in the foot with unbelievable characters and relationships. There’s been a murder. Well, four murders actually. The Coverdale family, a blended bunch consisting of mum Jacquie, dad George and ‘steps’ Giles and Melinda, have been blasted to oblivion…
A few weeks on, Detectives Vetch and Challoner are questioning the still-resident housekeeper, Eunice, about her relationships with her employers. A woman they’d like to quiz, postmistress Joan, is in a coma in hospital following an unexplained road accident.
As the flashbacks begin, it’s looking good for a decent little mystery. After all, this is a Ruth Rendell tale starring some top talent – Andrew Lancel, Shirley Anne Field, Sophie Ward and more. The adaptation is by Simon Brett, no mean crime writer himself, and Agatha Christie adaptor Antony Lampard, while producer Bill Kenwright has overseen any number of stage thrillers.
Sadly, the big mystery is just why this show fails to sizzle. Rendell intended the story not so much as a whodunit as a ‘how did they come to do it’, tying her killer’s acts to such themes as class and shame – she tells you who the murderer is, and why they did it, in the book’s very first sentence.
As this production isn’t quite so open, I won’t say who the murderer is… guessing their secret and how that led to slaughter is one possible road to pleasure. When you realise what the ‘shameful’ secret is,
A Judgement in Stone is a period piece, set in the Seventies the programme tells us – an apparent reference to cold calling in the script rather muddies those waters – but as presented by director Roy Marsden it may as well be the Thirties.
The Coverdales live in a country house world of jolly hockey sticks and charity work. For the denouement to succeed we have to believe the killer could honestly view them as do-gooding hypocrites without having some kind of persecution complex. We don’t. The family seems thoroughly nice, with the one incident in which a member does something out-of-order contained within a flashback… did it really happen that way?
There’s good work from Sophie Ward, unrecognisable as Eunice, with meek delivery and well-observed gait. Ben Nealon gives Det. Sgt. Challoner an understated charisma that serves his character well. Shirley Anne Field’s jumped-up cameo as a cleaner is seriously sinister.
Andrew Lancel, though, is underpowered as Det Supt. Vetch, it’s impossible to believe the Home Office sent him to give the locals a hand – the character has no spark. And his final lines, which should illuminate and underline the drama, are thrown away. Deborah Grant, meanwhile, is having a whale of a time as prostitute turned Bible-bashing postie Joan, but there’s no way this woman and the mouse that is Eunice would become friends. I could barely believe Joan might actually exist.
Apparently the novel really gets inside the mind of the killer, and it could be that the script isn’t adequately translating the characters to the stage. Certainly I don’t recognise the scenario presented in the programme notes: ‘By highlighting the marked differences between the Coverdales, in their entitled world of privilege, and the likes of Joan Smith and Eunice Parchman, clawing their way through life with no social advantages to fall back on, Rendell tapped into a psychological gold mine.’ What I saw was a well-off family who were all about giving back and offering second chances, and two pretty awful women.
The cast of A Judgement in Stone. Sophie Ward, Deborah Grant, Shirley Anne Field and Antony Costa (standing left) with Jennifer Sims, Mark Wynter, Rosie Thomson, and Joshua Price (seated) and Andrew Lancel and Ben Nealon (standing behind). Photo Mark Yeoman
The constant flashing back and forth is seriously inelegant, with characters passing one another as they get their latest turn on the drawing room set. You expect them to nod at one another, mutter ‘You’re up now, mate’. With all the wandering on and off-stage, and swapping back and forth of overcoats, it’s like a particularly dull French farce. And one big question that hangs over the show is never cleared up.
It’s an undemanding time passer, but as a spotlight on shame and indictment of the class system, A Judgement in Stone misses the target.
