Arts:Blog

Theatre Review: Rebus--A Game Called Malice ***

Anna Burnside reviews ‘a solid but otherwise unremarkable piece of theatre.’

It’s that most Heriot Row of occasions - a dinner party. Six guests, the best candlesticks, soft lights illuminating the many Scottish Colourists’ paintings on the walls.

For the amusement of the guests, the hostess has devised a murder mystery game, and they toy with this over coffee, the dregs of the claret and the single malts.

One of their number, the recently retired Inspector Rebus, hangs back from the desultory chat which zigzags around all the plot points that he will later need to solve the murder.

That’s the real murder rather than the fictional one - the first act ends when the shady casino owner discovers a dead body in the bathroom. After the interval, Rebus changes gear, unpicks the hostess’s parlour game, ties all the other loose ends together and explains the ‘what, where and why’ of the dead guy in the bathroom.

Unlike Rebus’s last stage appearance, A Game Called Malice was written by Ian Rankin with playwright Simon Reade. Gray O’Brien plays him with a singsong Edinburgh accent and, despite the costume department’s lazy attempts to crumple him up, he’s not the seedy, conflicted character from the books.

The others are drawn with crayon, and their lack of depth is exacerbated by their inaccurate wardrobe. Poor Abigail Thaw (playing Rebus’s solicitor date) has to wear a trouser suit several sizes too large and has her hair in a school run bun.

Rankin’s books, atmospheric and centred on Rebus’s gruff point of view, are not a natural fit for the stage. With its fixed set of characters and static setting, this is a more old fashioned proposition. Remove the well-kent name, and the references to TikTok, and it could have done the rounds in rep 50 years ago.

It’s the next stage of stunt casting - instead of shoehorning a celebrity into an existing play, this has a famous fictional character in a solid but otherwise unremarkable piece of theatre.

Rebus: A Game Called Malice has completed its run at The Pavilion in Glasgow. Its tour of the UK continues.

Photo by Nobby Clark.