Review: Dial M For Murder at Theatre Works

Review by Greg Gorton

Dial M for Murder appears to be quite a popular production to have in your season right now, with at least one show in Melbourne and its suburbs for the last few years. It helps that it was turned into an incredible Hitchcock film soon after its short run, and that many audience members will go knowing there is a beautiful victim and some clever plot turns.

It is, however, a difficult play to make engaging. The first thirty minutes is almost entirely filled with drawn-out exposition “conversations” and a company must put in quite an effort to find characterisation and action to place into the dry script. Fortunately, it is also a play that lends itself to beautiful images, and there is room to make it your own.

Smoke and Mirrors Productions has a fabulous design team in Jodi Hope, Tom Vulcan and Betty Auhl. The initial set really does feel like something you could believe the original productions would use, complete with fireplace, old telephone, and vintage furniture. Auhl’s costume design, especially for the role of Margot, is inspired greatly by the movie, and our nostalgic view of fifties cinema in general. As the play progresses, there are some creative (though not entirely realised) attempts to speak to the play’s themes of patriarchal control, feminism, and classism. 

The sound design for Dial M for Murder is what most sparked an interest in me, with synthesised music and heavy base filling transitions, while soundscapes speak to the world outside this little domestic terror.

It is a small cast for this play, with only four actors required, and all fill their roles well. Leon Walshe’s Max is a strong caricature of the sell-out television writer from America, while Tyrie Aspinall’s Tony is particularly sleazy, thinking more of himself than he really is. Joshua Bruce does well to delineate himself in the two roles of Captain Lesgate and Inspector Hubbard, though he was far more convincing in the former. It’s terribly unfortunate that the script does not offer more for Bridget Bourke, though her terror in that first dreadful scene was more than convincing. I also remain unconvinced by a need for accents in a play in which the “where” doesn’t matter. While the four actors by no means butchered their respective voices, I found them distracting more than meaningful.

It’s worth noting how well that specific moment in the play was performed. So many violent and death scenes in theatre are lacking any true tension while the first moments of this scene were quite frightening. This was only helped by the high point in Tom Vulcan’s lighting design, carefully illuminating just enough and nothing more.

Smoke and Mirrors Production’s take on Dial M for Murder attempts to focus on the universality of the situation the murder plot exists in. While this is an admirable take, it doesn’t quite reach what I believe it hoped to. Neither does it find a way to solve the problems within the script, and far too much of the first half of the play is found watching two people sit on a couch talking not quite to each other.

There is fun to be had in the plot twists found in Dial M for Murder, if you haven’t already seen it (or the movie) before. There is a sweetness in the design elements too, which may leave lasting images in your mind. This production is a comfortable night out for those looking for some light entertainment.

Image Credit: Dave McCarthy