Review by Eric Page
Walking into Theatre Royal Brighton for Cluedo 2, I anticipated a suspenseful unravelling of mysteries akin to its namesake board game. Unfortunately, what awaited was a perplexing evening of poorly paced theatrics, stilted choreography, and lacklustre acting. CLUEDO 2 – The Next Chapter! is set in the swinging 1960s – there’s new suspects, a new house, and lot of new bodies, in this old tale of murder, mystery and a secret passageway.
From the onset, the pacing of the production felt as if it were dragging, with scenes hanging on longer than a game of Cluedo when everyone insists on examining every room twice. The choreography, used for set and space transformation, seemed more akin to awkwardly placed stumbling rather than any semblance of fluid movement. One could hardly discern whether it was intentional irony or sheer incompetence.
As for the acting, well, let’s just say Colonel Mustard would have been more convincing as a candlestick than some of the performers on stage. Their delivery lacked conviction, leaving the audience feeling more puzzled than engaged. One couldn’t help but wonder if they were all in on a joke that the audience had yet to grasp. It was the first night for this cast, so some allowances should be made, as there’s a lot of timing, placement and joke landing to get right, but it felt both slow and rushed – an impressive achievement, but the polish was missing.
The set, constructed from cut-out doors, windows, etc rolling, twirling and being waltzed on and off stage, was perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the production, and that’s not saying much. It possessed all the charm of a hastily assembled game board, offering little in the way of narrative depth. Much like the plot itself, which seemed to unravel with all the coherence of a game of Cluedo played by a group of toddlers. At one dreadful point I thought they were going to sing.
Throughout the first half, one couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps this was all an elaborate ruse, a sophisticated deconstruction of a bad play, courtesy of the mind behind The Play That Goes Wrong and the original, tightly plotted, slick, funny and sharp production of (the first) Cluedo from 2022. Alas, it became increasingly evident that this play was simply wrong, with no redeeming qualities.
If there’s one silver lining to be found in this tangled web of theatrical missteps, it’s the brevity of the production. Like a swift accusation in the final moments of a Cluedo game, the end mercifully arrived, sparing the audience (and the cast perhaps) any further agony.
Did I enjoy any of it? … Dawn Buckland as Mrs White produced a tasty, daft buffet out of the thin gruel of her material, bagging most of the laughs of the night. The costumes were rather good with some chic colour coding in keeping with the board games premise. The cliches are done with high panto camp and there was a fantastic range of accents on stage, often from the same character. I did laugh at one or two of the ornate innuendos to be fair but even that patience ran out with an overextended, vulgar, baked goods sketch, and the cast seemed to get into their stride in the last 20 mins.
Cluedo 2 at Theatre Royal Brighton is a far cry from a gripping mystery and more like a panto – oh yes it is! With its poorly paced narrative, lacklustre choreography, and subpar acting, it fails to capture the essence of the board game. One can only hope that this tour sharpens up quick, doubles down on timings and sorts out the weirdly unprecise lighting. I’ll leave the last word to my companion: when I asked him for his ‘favourite part of the show’, he replied ‘when the curtain came down’.
At Theatre Royal Brighton until Saturday, 23 March
For more info or to book tickets see the Theatre Royal website
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