Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

I went to see Lord Arthur Saviles Crime a few weeks ago and I am going again this week to see it at Theatre Royal, Plymouth. I absolutely loved the play and Lee Mead is superb as Lord Arthur, all the cast are brilliant. I recommend it, a very enjoyable night out at the theatre.

mavis margrain, Torquay Devon

I've just been to see the play and found it wonderful. The cast were brilliant and Lee Mead, in his first non-musical role, deserved the aclaim he received. He and Gary Wilmot as Podgers really worked well together. Great night out!

Sharon Duggan, Worcester

I saw the opening night at the Malvern of Lord Arthur Saville’s Trousers… sorry… Crime. More of the trousers later! Did I enjoy it? Yes. Would I see it again? Yes. Was it flawed? Yes. I think mostly because Trevor Baxtor tried to give an Oscar Wilde feel with Wildesque quips (some of which were plagiarised from other sources) which didn’t fit a melodrama. The backdrops had overtones of panto. It's difficult for a play to be a spot on when the staging is confused. However, the cast made up for this confusion. Although Gary Wilmot receives top billing, and he was good, it’s really Lee Mead’s show and he pulled it off admirably. He brought a lot of humour to the roll and held the stage well, although I wish he’d soften his voice just a tad from time to time, like when sweet-talking Sybil. There was always a hard edge to it. Most of all I was distracted by Lord Arthur Saville's Trousers! There was no crease in them, the knees were saggy, they were too tight across his stomach that made his pockets gape and… well you just have to see them. They were not at all the sort of trousers an aristocrat would be seen dead in. The play was rounded off with a song which gave us all a chance to enjoy Lee Mead’s wonderfully rich singing voice. All in all, a good evening and, even with the trousers, I will be seeing it again!

Val Tyler, Hay

What a glorious Romp! Wednesday night’s audience really enjoyed this laugh-a-line farce and its expert presentation by a star cast. Trevor Baxter has reworked the plot from Wilde’s short story (1891) and the Constance Cox stage version of 1952 giving us an even more lively show within its framework of pastiche melodrama. The set is a delightful mock-up of Victorian music hall and theatre with gas footlights and with faux-proscenium to match. A costumed duo on violin and piano performs at appropriate times (to add pathos or to signal a dramatic moment or climax) and Lord Arthur declaims delightfully at the ends of scenes from The Ballad of Reading Gaol and other Wilde poems. Miss Anna McNicholas deserves particular mention for her perfect deportment, her delightful smile and sympathetic playing of the violin. Lee Mead gives a charming performance as Lord Arthur, the empty headed aristocrat who finds that he is fated – according to the prediction of Chiromantist or Palmist Septimus Podgers – to commit a murder and must do so before he marries his beloved Miss Sybil Merton. There is much to remind of Hugh Grant facially in his portrayal but that is no hardship to observe and his diction, together with that of other members of the cast, is admirably clear and appropriate. Kate O’Mara, as Lady Windermere, is imperious and commanding and delivers her lines with humour and with all the confidence of a pillar of the aristocracy while David Ross as the Dean of Chichester relishes the opportunity to bumble and preen in a delicious caricature. Mr Podgers is played with aplomb by Gary Wilmot whose part has grown in the Trevor Baxter version as has that of Herr Winckelkopf, the anarchist and specialist bomb-maker. Derren Nesbit as the comic German in Lederhosen is exuberantly funny while Gary Wilmot’s style and timing are spot on. The loss from the Constance Cox version is the inestimable butler, Baines, who is much more of a Jeeves figure to Lord Arthur in the earlier play. The trade-off of course is the humour and style of this production by Christopher Luscombe which entertains and delights in equal measure.

David Farrell, Hereford