Windsor Theatre Royal – until 25th January 2025
Reviewed by Liberty Noke
3***
Dial M for Mayhem is a comedy following a theatre troupe performing a play in a village hall in a rural town in Scotland. They are performing, as the name suggests, Dial M for Murder. The stage is set with a small sitting room and walls towards the edge of the stage. There are spotlights at the front of the stage suggesting that we are watching a play within a play. The scene opens with a murder, one character hides behind a curtain and attempts to strangle another. She in turn reaches for a pair of scissors and stabs him. From this opening scene, you could be lead to believe that you had bought tickets for a murder mystery but the actor (Julian, played by Joey Lockhart) begins an over-exaggerated, comedic death sequence and you remember that this is a comedy. The lights come up, there is a shout of “cut” and the characters begin squabbling about Julian’s poor performance in the death scene.
As the characters argue, many things begin to go wrong, owing to the shows limited budget, the drafty village hall or the many different personalities of the actors. Some of this is indeed funny but a lot of it felt awkward instead. A few of the jokes were met with laughter from the audience but many with silence. A recurring joke in the play is that Rupert, played by Alasdair Baker, keeps farting. While a fart joke can be funny, I felt that this was overused. Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong while the producer played by Luke Rhodri tried his best to keep everything together.
In the second act the play begins and the set has been flipped so we can see the Mayhem backstage. The props are mislaid and the wrong sounds are queued and this is already funnier than the first act. However much like the first act, the performance is lacking polish
While this was an enjoyable night at the theatre, this play felt unfinished. It had all the makings of a very good comedy but was lacking something. It felt very much like a first draft, with all the potential to be good. Some of the acting felt a little awkward and amateur. Despite this, I found myself laughing out loud at moments