IAN Rankin’s iconic literary detective John Rebus is one of Scotland’s most successful cultural franchises. Not only has the author penned an extraordinary 25 Rebus novels, but his brilliant and weatherworn protagonist has made numerous forays into other media, including radio, television and theatre.
No sooner has the new BBC TV series (starring Richard Rankin as a young Detective Sergeant Rebus) hit our screens than we have the grizzled cop’s latest stage incarnation. Titled Rebus: A Game Called Malice (with, it seems, no apologies to Paul Weller and The Jam) and written by Ian Rankin and Simon Reade, the piece is a tightly wrought whodunit.
The play owes a discernible debt to Agatha Christie and the genre she defined. In the large, beautifully appointed Edinburgh townhouse of heiress Harriet Godwin, we are introduced to an unlikely dinner party (comprised of the aforementioned Mrs Godwin; her speculator husband, Paul; his dubious friend, casino owner Jack Fleming; his much younger girlfriend, Candida Jones; lawyer Stephanie Jeffries; and, finally, her date, retired Detective Inspector John Rebus).
The ostensible purpose of the gathering – aside from consuming a meal cooked by a reputed chef brought in for the occasion – is to play a murder mystery game conceived by Harriet herself. Needless to say, however, it’s not long before a real-life mystery emerges (and it’s not just the curious disappearance of the cook).
You will find no spoilers here (not least because I don’t want to be found dead, tied to a chair, like one of Rankin’s unfortunate victims). Suffice it to say that Rebus (who is played with all the necessary disappointment and integrity by Gray O’Brien) soon has cause to utter the immortal words, “Nobody leaves this room”.
Running to just an hour and 45 minutes (including interval), this well-paced drama doesn’t have time for serious character development. Instead, like Harriet’s murder mystery, it is a work of clever personality portraits in which, like Rebus himself, we pick up clues.
In our (that is, the audience’s) case, they are clues as to human decency, or absence thereof (few characters come off well, and let’s just say there’s a gender tilt as to who is the nastiest). In the case of Rebus, of course, they are clues as to malign secrets, deceptions and criminality.
Director Loveday Ingram’s production is crisp and snappy. Thanks in no short measure to designer Terry Parsons’s fine set (a bourgeois dining room dominated by Scottish colourist paintings), it is also classy. The acting is universally excellent, with O’Brien a superbly dishevelled Rebus. Uncomfortable in these New Town surroundings, he struggles to hide his contempt for most of his fellow diners.
Sprinkled with humour, blessed with moments of well-observed conflict, and boasting a genuinely smart twist in the tail, this whodunit has its genre bang to rights.
At His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, September 16-21; and Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, September 23-27
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