Sir Ian Rankin, the author of this play, is one of Britain’s most distinguished crime writers. His reputation is based largely on John Rebus, the grumpy Scottish detective who prowls gloomily through his 25 books: a detective on the edge and not always playing by the book.Rankin has slowly aged his detective: he is now retired but restless with unresolved issues, especially in love.
Rankin says he wrote the play in lockdown when the rule of 6 applied, so he was determined to have only 6 characters on stage.Although other books of his have been adapted for stage (and for television), this is the first play he has written and he found the process quite challenging.In a play, you can’t chop and change, you can’t have endless locations and characters so Rankin has gone to the other extreme: 6 characters in a very closed, claustrophobic atmosphere.This play, however, is lighter than his books: there is some humour, especially in the character Candida, who is an influencer marvelling at Rebus lack of knowledge about the social media world.
The scene is set in a genteel Edinburgh house with beautiful furniture and paintings. The hostess, Harriet, has devised a murder mystery game and for the first part, her guests are trying to work out what happened, at the same time revealing the seedier sides of their characters.You start to work out how they relate to each other and tension starts to grow.Has Harriet based the characters of the game on her own guests?In the end, you realise that nobody is what they seem.The downtrodden, controlled wife: she is not as naive as she seems.The influencer? She’s no brainless floozy.
It must be strange for Abigail Thaw, John’s daughter and star in Endeavour, to be back in Oxford.She plays a barrister, known to Rebus, but also, we find out, to someone else in the room and in a very unofficial way.What is so clever is how all the characters go from affable dinner guests to frustrated, angry, unpleasant people who have a history.This is the point Stephanie (Abigail Thaw) makes: nobody is truly innocent. We watch this transformation starting before ‘the body’ is found: who the body is is of some interest, but what is more important is how everyone in the room reacts to the news – and the hold Rebus has over all of them in one way or another.All sorts of secrets come out into the open.
The writing is very clever. Take Harriet for example: she just seems to be a not very interesting hostess, worrying about the food etc. but you begin to realise that her husband is very controlling, discouraging her from going to the gym etc. We pick this up but we don’t think she realises this is happening – but actually she does and, when pushed, she controls the situation much better than Paul her husband.Then there is Brandon, who never appears, but the relationship of several people in the room to him is key to the unravelling of much of the plot.
No spoiler here though: you must go and see the play yourself to find out how it all fits together. There will be shocks and surprises and laughs and tensions that you need to experience for yourself.