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  • Home
  • Productions
    • Future Productions
    • Popular Playwrights
  • Archive
    • 2020- >
      • The Absence Of War
      • Funny Money
      • A Frightful Evening
      • The Ghost Train
      • Jekyll & Hyde
      • Ladies Down Under
      • The Last Quiz Night On Earth
      • A Legal Murder
      • Silver Lining
      • Steaming
      • Underground
      • The Western Approaches
    • 2010-19 >
      • 1 Flat 3 Stories
      • Abandonment
      • Animal Farm
      • Carrington VC
      • A Christmas Carol
      • The Country Wife
      • Crown Matrimonial
      • Easy Virtue
      • Fawlty Towers 2013
      • Fawlty Towers 2015
      • Feed the Beast
      • FlatSpin
      • Hello, Is There Any Body There?
      • The Hollow
      • Ladies Day
      • A Lady Mislaid
      • La Musica & Perfect Partners
      • Love In A Mist
      • Maskerade
      • Misfits
      • Much Ado About Nothing
      • Nobody's Perfect
      • NSFW
      • The Railway Children
      • Salt
      • Sauce For The Goose
      • Six Characters In Search Of An Author
      • This Happy Breed
      • The Thrill of Love
      • Visiting Hour
      • A Wedding Story
      • Wind in the Willows Chelsfield
      • Wind in the Willows Edinburgh
    • 2000-09 >
      • Arsenic and Old Lace
      • Black Comedy
      • Cemetery Club
      • A Chorus Of Disapproval
      • Daisy Pulls It Off
      • Dangerous Corner
      • Fear and Fancy
      • Garden
      • A Ghost On Tiptoe
      • Hobsons Choice
      • House
      • The Importance of Being Earnest
      • Intimate Exchanges
      • Lady Windermeres Fan
      • Loot
      • Lucky Sods
      • Mars & Venus
      • The Merry Wives Of Windsor
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
      • Murder In Company
      • My Three Angels
      • New Directions
      • Over My Dead Body
      • Our Country’s Good
      • Out Of Focus
      • Party Piece
      • Proscenophobia
      • Ring Round The Moon
      • The Rivals
      • Steel Magnolias
      • Stepping Out
      • Strictly Murder
    • 1990-99 >
      • Bedroom Farce
      • Blithe Spirit
      • California Suite
      • Deadly Nightcap
      • Dial M For Murder
      • Dick Turpin
      • Gosforths Fete
      • Hay Fever
      • An Inspector Calls
      • The Late Edwina Black
      • Lord Arthur Saviles Crime
      • Miranda
      • Move Over Mrs Markham
      • Not Now, Darling
      • Pleasures And Perils
      • Round And Round The Garden
      • Seasons Greetings
      • Some Confusions
      • Something To Hide
      • Tartuffe
      • Time And Time Again 1993
      • Time And Time Again 1999
      • Time, Murderer, Please
      • Tons Of Money
      • The Weekend
      • When One Door Closes
      • The Woman In White
    • 1980-89 >
      • Anastasia
      • The Barretts Of Wimpole Street
      • The Brontes
      • Busybody
      • Caught Napping
      • A Friend Indeed
      • Full Treatment
      • Gaslight
      • Mother Goose
      • Murder In Company
      • Nightmare
      • Outside Edge
      • Pink String And Sealing Wax
      • Pygmalion
      • Rape Of The Belt
      • Relative Values
      • Return To Victoria
      • Separate Tables
      • Shut Your Eyes and Think of England
      • Suddenly at Home
      • A Tomb With A View
      • Treasure Hunt
      • When We Are Married
    • 1970-79 >
      • The Aspern Papers
      • Brush With A Body
      • The Chiltern Hundreds
      • The Circle
      • Dandy Dick
      • Dear Charles
      • Fish Out Of Water
      • The House Of Bernada Alba
      • The House On The Cliff
      • An Ideal Husband
      • Ladies In Retirement
      • A Letter From The General
      • The Matchmaker
      • The Rivals
      • The Royal Pardon
      • The Schoolmistress
      • Shadow In The Sun
      • Someone Waiting
      • Spiders Web
      • They Came To A City
      • Wanted: One Body
    • 1960-69 >
      • 1066 And All That
      • Aladdin
      • Antigone and The Critic
      • As You Like It
      • Billy Liar
      • The Bread Winner
      • Breath Of Spring
      • Charleys Aunt
      • A Christmas Carol
      • Cinderella 1965
      • Dick Whittington
      • Flowering Cherry
      • Frost At Midnight
      • Hay Fever
      • The Hollow
      • The House By The Lake
      • Macbeth
      • Man Alive
      • The Merchant Of Venice
      • Midsummer Mink
      • A Midsummer Nights Dream
      • Pantomime 1960
      • The Pen of My Aunt, The Women Have Their Way
      • The Pleasure Garden
      • Pygmalion
      • Rookery Nook
      • The Taming Of The Shrew
      • Tobias and the Angel
      • Twelfth Night
      • Waters Of The Moon
      • The Young Elizabeth
    • 1950-59 >
      • After October
      • The Browning Version, Elegant Edward
      • By Candlelight
      • Count Your Blessings
      • Eden End
      • Grand National Night
      • The Happy Prisoner
      • The Holly And The Ivy
      • The Late Christopher Bean
      • Libel
      • Martine
      • Our Town
      • The Queen and the Rebels
      • Thunder Rock
      • Young Wives Tale
    • 1936-49 >
      • Early 1940s plays
      • 20th Century Lullaby
      • And So To Bed
      • Berkeley Square
      • Cinderella
      • The Corn Is Green
      • Dangerous Corner
      • Distinguished Gathering
      • Duet For Two Hands
      • Elegant Edward (1940s)
      • The Ghost Train
      • Hassan
      • The Importance Of Being Earnest
      • Love From A Stranger
      • The Middle Watch
      • New 66 And All That
      • Night Must Fall
      • Noah
      • Pinocchio
      • The Rivals
      • Roberts Wife
      • This Happy Breed
    • Our History
  • Join Us
    • JimSlips
    • Links >
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    • Get In Touch

Hello, Is There Any Body There?

by Ian Hornby, directed by Lestrine Wishart
24-27 March 2010
A parody whodunnit.

All is dull and peaceful at Squire Grange. Lady Amelia searches for inspiration for her latest mystery novel as Sir Malcolm sleeps off the excesses of another idle day. Family friend Freddy is persuaded to try and think of new ideas. Meanwhile, the hapless Vic Tim arrives and is promptly dispatched by an unknown assailant.

Everyone must try to discover the murderer before he or she can strike again. The first problem, however, is how to get rid of Vic's body, not least because he has to come back in Act Two as a policeman! Smalls, the butler, and Mabel, the maid, try to assist the inept police, but not in time to stop the Producer being murdered. Eventually Miss Marbles arrives to unmask the culprit … or does she?
Picture
Picture
Review in Chelsfield Village Voice
Hello is There Any Body There? is an unusual play and a departure from the Chelsfield Players’ last two dramatic productions. It was more a play about a play than a play within a play. It was obviously great fun for the performers, engaging the audience from the start by each proclaiming to be the star of the show.

The names of
the cast were chosen to provide the best punning opportunities. Despite (or was it because of?) the most awful puns it raised much laughter from the audience. Notable amongst these was the “wire Squire” which was also “a telegram Ma’am” and was put “on the table Mabel” (so that’s why she was called Mabel) and WPC Eve Nunnall, the very mention of whose name prompted a concert of “evening all” from the other police officers present. We were expecting reference to be made to someone’s smalls due to the butler being named Smalls and were not disappointed.

We all knew that the murder victim just had to be Vic Tim. The reincarnated, dim-witted and appropriately named DC Fickey proudly boasted that he came from a long line of Fickeys and the name of Inspector Sides was, of course frequently misheard as “insecticides”. The inspector thought at one point that the audience had been poisoned by the interval tea but then realised they had just nodded off. We were all eagerly waiting for the next ghastly pun or comic surprise from the actors at the sudden thunder claps and dramatic chords. At one point Fickey even accused a member of the audience.

The mystery of who the murderer or even the victims were eventually received the attention of the surprisingly flirtatious Miss Marbles. Having revealed and arrested the murderer, the frustrated and bored prompt, Miss Marbles and all the rest of the cast were gunned down in a hail of bullets from the opposite wings.

There was plenty of meat for the actors, all of whom made the most of their comic opportunities but the most enjoyable role, both for actor and audience just had to be Vic Tim/DC Fickey.

A View from the Stalls
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