A Theatrical Murder

by David W Robinson

  “National insanity,” he muttered while the two women ducked into a souvenir shop.

  Across the road was the Rep Theatre, a low-slung, flat-roofed building, its grey/white walls bedecked with posters advertising forthcoming attractions, and a large banner over the smoked glass doors, flaunting the evening’s entertainment.

  Red lettering edged in white, emblazoned on a black background spelled out, For one night only, Malcolm Sedgwick’s production of… Beneath in gold capitals was the title, HAMLET.

  Either side of the title were depictions of characters from the play and as Joe studied them, questions began to form in his mind. Since when did Hamlet wear a fedora and carry an automatic pistol?

  “Sylvia did say the play had been modernised,” Sheila said when the women came out of the gift shop and he put the point to them.

  Joe, who like Sylvia Goodson, had never been a big lover of Shakespeare, was even less certain of the possible interpretations ahead of them. “I’m not sure I could deal with a Hamlet in nineteen-thirties Chicago. And what’s young Teri Goodson playing? A gangster’s moll?”

  “Probably.” Brenda led them on their way.

  A hundred yards further on, they came to a small area of seating in a sunken well, encircling the statue of the Jolly Fisherman, the icon upon which Skegness had allegedly built its reputation. A crowd had gathered and in the centre were two men, both holding stacks of leaflets, and arguing vehemently. They stood a yard or two apart, and the number of people looking on made it plain that their argument was considered a legitimate spectator sport. Joe certainly considered it such, and wriggled his way to the front so he could hear properly.

  The taller of the pair, dressed in an old-fashioned trenchcoat, was haranguing the other. “Dempster, you couldn’t direct traffic along a one-way street let alone put on a production of any serious intent.”

  Dempster, wearing what appeared to be a dark blue, patterned kimono beneath his quilted anorak, laughed harshly. “You’re a fine one to talk, Sedgwick. What was it the Doncaster Post said about your Hamlet? More of a tour de farce than tour de force. Now, I was here first, so go spread your comic cuts elsewhere.”

  “Comic cuts? How dare you?” Sedgwick’s colour rose in direct proportion to his temper. “I take on only the most daunting of projects. I don’t idle away my time playing a clown for the benefit of children and late night viewers on Channel Four.”

  Dempster laughed again. “Listen to yourself, you pompous, arrogant, ham. You know, Sedgwick, you’d do well in Aladdin. Playing a horse’s arse would come quite naturally to you.”

  That was the tipping point for Sedgwick. Discarding his leaflets, he launched himself at Dempster, who dropped his leaflets and prepared to defend himself. Before anyone could stop them, they were rolling and grappling on the wet ground, and Joe was struck by the absurdity of the Jolly Fisherman who now appeared to be laughing at their childish behaviour.

  Several men from the crowd intervened and pulled them apart. Joe, Sheila and Brenda, meantime, collected the leaflets together.

  “I’m afraid they got mixed up,” Sheila said to Dempster.

  “Thanks, missus.” The actor took a bundle from her. He selected a leaflet for Hamlet, tossed it to the ground and crushed it under his shabby trainers. “I’d rent a dormitory on Ben Nevis before I’d publicise your gag-fest, Sedgwick.”

  Several yards away where Joe and Brenda had passed over a handful of leaflets, the equally enraged Sedgwick, held up a flyer for Aladdin at the Bijou, Mablethorpe. Holding it up for everyone to see, he tore it in half and threw it away. “Your aficionados might just as well throw their cash into a coke oven, you ham.”

  Sedgwick meandered off in the direction of the Rep, Dempster in the opposite direction, and the crowd began to disperse, going about their business melding into the cold and rain.

  “Actors. Who’d have ’em,” Joe grumbled.

  “What do you mean?” Brenda asked.

  “If you’re gonna trade insults, just trade insults. Dormitories on Ben Nevis, throwing cash in coke ovens. Airy-fairy, arty-farty nonsense.”

  As the crowd thinned even further, they crossed the street making for the town centre.

  “Sedgwick is the director of tonight’s play, isn’t he?” Brenda asked.

  “And the star,” Sheila replied. “And I’m really not looking forward to it, now.”

  Chapter Three

  The Sanford 3rd Age Club all but filled the Metropole’s dining room. Waiters dashed hither and thither in an effort to placate the frenzied feeding, and it reminded Joe of a zoo.

  “They’ve always been pack animals,” Sheila agreed.

  It was rare that Joe bothered with a collar and tie. Formal occasions such as weddings, christenings or funerals, and on odd occasions, court appearances, were usually the only times he could be found in such attire. But the women had pressured him into smartening up his appearance, and he had put on his suit, a neatly pressed white shirt, and plain red tie.

  “I don’t know why,” he complained when they took their seats. “You need eyes and ears for the theatre, not your best suit and choker.”

  Both women had dressed similarly. Not quite formal, but not informal, either. Sheila wore a black skirt and top, with a fancy brooch above the left breast, and Brenda had put on a full-length dress in dark brown.

  “We prefer to see you smart, Joe,” Sheila told him. “After all, you are our escort for the evening.”

  “The last escort I had was a Ford Escort, and it kept breaking down,” Joe told them, “He ran a finger under his collar. “I might break down, too, if I have to wear this bloody tie all night.”

  Once he had worked his way through country vegetable soup which Joe swore was canned, followed by excellent baked haddock, which in turn was followed by sticky toffee pudding and thick custard, Joe was slightly more amenable.

  “Considering this time of year would see their trade slackening off, they’ve done pretty well.”

  When negotiating the original booking, Joe had promised the hotel that their bar takings would rocket, as long as the hotel could meet the non-standard requirements, which included an early dinner (5:30pm) on the day of arrival to accommodate the theatre opening times. Joe had already spotted the manager’s gleaming face when he cashed up the bar receipts for the afternoon, and she was a happy woman when she opened the dining room doors for them at 5:25.

  The food was as good as she had led him to expect, the service was as fast as could be expected, and in general the club members were in a fine frame of mind by the time Joe and his two companions ordered coffee and after dinner mints.

  “The worst is yet to come,” he said, pouring two sachets of brown sugar into his coffee. “We have to get them through a two-hour performance of Hamlet.”

  “They’ll be all right,” Brenda replied.

  Joe glanced across the room where George Robson and Owen Frickley appeared to be reeling slightly as they cracked jokes with Mort Norris and his wife. “I don’t know. They could be a problem.”

  Sheila was about to pick him up on the subject when the dining room doors swung open, and Teri Goodson walked in accompanied by a man and an elderly couple.

  She made first for her grandmother, who fussed over her before allowing Teri to make introductions. On Sylvia’s prompt, Teri looked towards Joe, Sheila and Brenda, and then made her way over, pausing on the way to say a brief hello to people she knew.

  A slim, pretty girl with a bob of neatly brushed blonde hair, her blue eyes looked bright and enthusiastic, pleased to see so many people from her hometown. As with so many others from Sanford, Joe had known her for a good number of years, and he guessed she would be in her early twenties now. Fashionably dressed in tight jeans and a loose woollen top, he remembered when she called into The Lazy Luncheonette in her school uniform, and she practised her putative acting skills on her school friends.

  “Mr Murray, Mrs Riley, Mrs Jump. I’m so glad you could make it. Gran tells m
e you organised it.”

  “We organise all the Sanford 3rd Age Club outings, Teri,” Sheila replied. “How are you? I must say, you’re looking very, er, adult.”

  “She means grown up,” Brenda laughed. “Adult makes it sound like you’re appearing in naughty films.”

  Teri giggled at the thought. “I’m very happy with my lot, thanks, Mrs Riley. May I introduce some of my colleagues? Nat Billingham, Irma Karlinsky and Edgar Anderton. Nat, Irma, Edgar, this is Mrs Sheila Riley, Mrs Brenda Jump and Mr Joe Murray. They were a big part of my childhood.”

  Joe shook hands with Billingham, a dark haired, good looking man in his early to mid-thirties. The grip was strong, exuding a confidence supported by the candid stare of warm, brown eyes beneath the dark fringe.

  Irma’s handshake was a complete contrast. Limp and weak, her hands gnarled into a shapeless appendage added to her wrists.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr Riley,” Edgar said as he too shook hands. His weather-beaten, tanned features broke into a smile devoid of most teeth.

  “Murray. I’m Murray. She’s Riley.” Joe gestured at Sheila. “Easy to tell the difference. She’s a woman and I’m—”

  “An old woman,” Sheila interrupted. “Or at least he carries on like one.”

  “Apologies,” Edgar said. “It’s the medication, you know. Gets me all of a dither sometimes.” The old man nodded at Irma. “Dunno what I’d do without the trouble and strife to look after me.”

  Aware that Irma must be using her maiden name on stage, Joe refrained from asking what Edgar’s problem was. Both he and Irma were tanned to a dark bronze, and Joe had already guessed that Irma suffered from some kind of arthritis. He assumed that they had recently holidayed somewhere hot and sunny where the weather would be kinder to Irma. But there were no physical clues as to Edgar’s condition.

  Concentrating on Teri, Joe asked, “So you made it, chicken? The big star.”

  Teri laughed. “Hardly that, Mr Murray.”

  “Why don’t you call me Joe?”

  “It wouldn’t be polite and you know what Gran’s like.”

  “She was a little girl who used to come in my café to learn her lines,” Joe said to Teri’s colleagues. “And now look at her. Ophelia. It’s an important part, isn’t it?”

  “An excellent part for any young actress,” Nat said without confirming Joe’s query.

  “And what role do you play, Nat?” Sheila asked. “Hamlet?”

  Nat laughed falsely. “Good heavens, no. Our lord and master, Malcolm Sedgwick, reserved that role for himself. I play Laertes.”

  Joe grinned. “Vengeance is mine, eh?”

  “You like Shakespeare, Mr Murray?” Irma asked.

  “Would you rather I be honest or should I just flatter you?”

  Irma laughed and Brenda apologised.

  “Just ignore him. He’ll enjoy the play.” Deliberately hanging the subject, Brenda went on, “We were looking at the posters earlier. An experimental reworking of the play; it sounds really intriguing.”

  “Avant garde,” Nat said. “At least, we like to think so.”

  “And how about you, Teri?” Joe asked. “Excited to be in it.”

  Her smile faded only slightly but her bright eyes suddenly became emptier. “It could be the springboard I’m looking for, Mr Murray. At least I hope so.”

  “But you’re not giving away any of the plot?”

  “The plot doesn’t change,” Edgar told them. “Just the setting. We’re sure you’ll be impressed.”

  “Having seen Malcolm Sedgwick scrapping like a schoolboy this afternoon, we hope he puts up a better performance on stage.”

  Joe’s remark drew thunderous looks from Sheila and Brenda. The older couple laughed it off, Teri looked worried and Nat hurried to exculpate his director.

  “Raif Dempster. Pain in the posterior. A trouble-causer and he’s never liked Malcolm.”

  Now Teri hurried to intervene. “Well, if you’ll excuse us, we have to be going. The doors open at seven and we’re due on stage at eight. Maybe we’ll see you in the bar during the interval and after the final curtain.”

  “Sure, kid,” Joe agreed in his worst Bogart impression.

  “Just one last thing,” Brenda put in. “Irma, where did you get that wonderful tan? Mediterranean?”

  Irma smiled. “Peru.”

  They watched the foursome make their back to Sylvia before leaving. Joe returned to his coffee. “All is not well in Elsinore,” he said.

  “What? Oh very funny, Joe.”

  “No, I mean it, Brenda. Did you see Teri’s face when I asked how excited she was? She’s an actress, and a good one, too, but there was something behind those eyes that wasn’t right.”

  “And Nat Billingham was quick to blame Raif Dempster for the fight this afternoon,” Sheila added. “Still, whatever it is, Joe, it’s nothing do with us. Don’t you think, Brenda?”

  “Hmm? What?” Brenda had been far away. “Sorry. I was just wondering if they serve Campari and soda in Peru.”

  ***

  It was a little before seven when they arrived outside the Rep Theatre. The bar was tagged onto the end of the building almost as an afterthought. Joe called there first and placed an order for his interval drinks, then joined the rest of the club members as they began to file in. Having presented their tickets, he and Brenda stocked up on sweets and mints while Sheila purchased programmes, and they made their way into the auditorium.

  The place was quite small. With two exit rows, seating for perhaps ten people along the walls on either side, the centre section doubled that number. Joe guessed that the capacity of the theatre would be less than five hundred.

  “No wonder their prices are so high,” he whispered as they took their seats.

  Although Joe was certain neither Sheila nor Brenda had planned it that way, he was sat between them, with Brenda to the right and beyond her, Les Tanner and Sylvia Goodson.

  With half an hour to go, and the houselights still on, Joe popped a mint humbug into his mouth and while he sucked on it, he opened the programme.

  A glossy, yet inexpensive brochure, it detailed a little history of what he considered to be Shakespeare’s best-known work, then followed it with the cast, which was surprisingly small for Hamlet. As he read on he began to understand why. The battlements of Elsinore Castle would not figure, neither would Polonius’ house, nor the churchyard. As he read on, Joe, who had barely a rudimentary knowledge of the play, wondered how they were going to fit in the big scenes.

  “Are they gonna find Yorick’s skull in the sideboard?” he asked of Sheila.

  She, too, was studying the programme with a frown of dismay. “They’ve turned it into a gangster play,” she whispered. “How can you play Hamlet as a gangster?”

  Joe considered the idea. “Well, it could be done. I meanersay, Hamlet is all about his uncle nicking the throne by murdering his brother, Hamlet’s dad, isn’t it?”

  “A bit more involved than that, Joe,” Brenda said, “but go on.”

  “I was thinking it would be fairly easy to translate that as one brother taking over the other brother’s turf in gangland. And it would still drive Hamlet potty, wouldn’t it? If he was expecting to take over the mob from his dad, and his uncle nicked it, it would drive him up the wall.”

  “They’ve done away with numerous characters,” Sheila pointed out as she read through the cast list. “Laertes is listed as Claudius’s son. He should have been Polonius’ son, but Polonius isn’t mentioned. And Horatio barely gets a mention but he’s cast as Ophelia’s brother.”

  “Welcome to Cheapo Productions Limited,” Joe muttered. He glanced through the publication again. “Hey, I can’t see Teri mentioned here. According to this, it’s someone called Teri Sanford playing Ophelia.”

  “Her stage name is Teri Sanford,” Brenda explained. “It has more of a ring to it than Goodson. And you should be pleased. She’s named it after our hometown.”

  “Hmm. Not after our
club, then?”

  “She’d sound pretty silly with a name like Teri Sanford 3rd Age Club,” Sheila said.

  “No, I didn’t mean that. I meant—”

  “We know what you meant, Joe,” Brenda interrupted. “Sheila was simply stressing that there’s more to Sanford than our club.”

  “I know that. I just thought she might have chosen it because her grandmother is a member.”

  The two women let the argument go at that, but when the house lights went down and the curtain rose, Joe was immediately convinced that his muted opinion, welcome to Cheapo Productions Limited was right.

  The setting appeared to be the living room of a suburban house or flat. Wearing a drab, pin-striped suit, with a faded white shirt and ragged tie, the elderly Edgar Anderton, playing Claudius, sat in an armchair to the right, with Gertrude, clad in a three-quarter length skirt and large cardigan, in a second armchair alongside him. Laertes, wearing a smarter suit from the early sixties, stood behind them. Hamlet, dressed much the same as Laertes, faced Claudius, while behind him, Teri, lounged on a settee. She was dressed in a white dress with a deep V at the cleavage, similar to the one made famous by Marilyn Monroe in the photograph where her skirt was raised over an air vent. The fixtures and fittings surrounding the small ensemble were of the right period, and Joe estimated he could have kitted them all out and arranged the backdrop from jumble sales for less than a hundred pounds.

  He had already edited out the opening scenes Shakespeare had written, and he waited for them to get into the action. But the biggest surprise came when Claudius finally spoke.

  “Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death, the memory be green, and that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief.”

  Joe was dumbstruck and a glance at Sheila, a Shakespeare aficionado in her own, small way, told the same story. From behind, he heard George Robson laugh and then quickly suppress his mirth.

  With a muttered, “What hell is this tripe?” Joe opened his programme again and strained his eyes in the dim lighting while the cast carried on, delivering Shakespeare’s lines as they had been written and performed for four hundred years, delivered now in the wholly incongruous setting of an East End mobster’s 1960’s living room.