THE MYSTERIE OF 
MARIA MARTEN

Cut to the Chase at the Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

01.11.10

for The Public Reviews

production picture by Nobby Clark

The ghoulish tale of Maria Marten entered the popular imagination before the murderer's corpse hit the dissecting-room slab in 1828.

It's been staged regularly ever since, and Chris Bond's tongue-in-cheek melodrama version was an obvious choice for the resident company at the Queen's.

The footlights and the false proscenium were in place, a kind of pageant cart, complete with pumpkins, sat centre stage, hinting, with the Morris dancing scarecrows, at a dramatic tradition much earlier than the Victorians. As the unlikely plot unfolded, a towering pulpit, a tiny pantomime cottage and the “infamous Red Barn” itself were wheeled on by the scarecrow crew.

Bond's tuppence-coloured prose [and verse] delighted in alliteration, hyperbole and folklore. The basic plot, and some of the characters, were taken from fact; the rest, including the political stirrings, sprang from the playwright's fertile imagination. An ailing wife in a bath chair, a baby stolen by gipsies, the Tarot and the Thane of Cawdor, all added zest to the already lurid story.

No surprise to have the incredibly talented Cut to the Chase cast playing instruments – euphonium and accordion added to the mix here – though mostly off stage; the best exception was a furious fiddle duet as Good and Evil vied for Maria's soul.

Even before the curtain went up, we met the Martens, desperately imploring the audience to track down, and later impersonate, their lost sheep. Lindsay Ashworth was a superb rustic caricature, matched by Simon Jessop's Molesticker Marten, who was closest to the panto tradition with his singalong and his banter. Tom Jude made an imposing rector – his sermon was brilliantly done – and Oliver Seymour-Marsh played the dastardly Corder for all he was worth, complete with tall hat and melodrama cloak. But the hardest working actor had to be Christine Holman, who not only played the crucial, and rather comely, Gypsy, but also came on in Act Two as Lady Augusta, the brilliant detective who reveals the “true” story behind the body in the barn.

Despite her efforts, this was one of the weaknesses of the show, with page after page of explanation which made Miss Marple seem tongue-tied. Contrast the economical Ballad of the Trial, sung by Maria's Mother.

Matt Devitt's broad-brush production had many neat touches – the hunt and the storm, the back-projection metaphors from the natural world, the parasol sword, the psychic charades. It all made for an entertaining take on a familiar tale. As Bond says, melodrama, with its strong storylines, suspense, passion and cheap laughs, finds its true home in the theatre. This classic example is at the Queen's till the 20^th.

this piece first appeared on The Public Reviews