Review: SparkPlug (Box of Tricks)

Thursday 14th February 2019
HOME, Manchester

Another theatre review from me! On Thursday, I was at HOME again for North Manchester FM, this time attending the press night of SparkPlug, a new play by Mancunian writer and performer David Judge. My review played out today on Hannah’s Bookshelf, but here’s the (slightly) longer version…

Photo credit: Alex Mead, Decoy Media

SparkPlug is a new production by Manchester-based theatre company Box of Tricks, which is currently on at HOME Manchester. The show is written and performed by David Judge and directed by Hannah Tyrell-Pinder.

This is a one-man show, and Judge has spoken in interviews about how it’s inspired by his own childhood and upbringing. Technically, the piece is a monologue, but the lyrical script and energetic performance style ensure that SparkPlug is so much more than a soliloquy. Its verbal style is poetic, with the rhythms and cadences of a spoken word piece, and its decade-long narrative unfolds in vignettes.

This is the story of Dave, a white working-class man from Wythenshawe with dodgy tattoos and a Ford Capri (well, it is the 1980s). Dave falls for Joanne, a friend of his sister, and near the beginning of the show he ‘rescues’ her from a drink- and drug-fuelled party at her flat in Moss Side. The party has descended into violence, and Dave narrates his concerns (and, significantly, his prejudices) about being a white man in a predominantly black neighbourhood. He also talks about his role as big brother to Angela, driver to his friends and family, and (potentially) lover to Joanne.

Photo credit: Alex Mead, Decoy Media

Joanne, it transpires, is pregnant, and the father of the baby is black. Dave falls in love with Joanne, and then falls in love with the baby (a boy named David). As SparkPlug unfolds, this latter love – paternal love – is the central focus. This is not a play about a man’s relationship with a woman (though some aspects of Dave and Joanne’s relationship are covered), but rather a man’s relationship with his son. Interestingly, the word ‘stepson’ isn’t used at any point in the play – in SparkPlug’s world, you’re either a dad or you’re not.

The story takes place from 1983 to 1993. It charts the first ten years of young David’s life, though told from the perspective of Dave, a white man bringing up a black son (sometimes single-handedly) in Wythenshawe. The play tackles the question of race and skin colour head on, and is unafraid of addressing the more complicated aspects of dual heritage (or mixed race) identities. Racism, in various forms, is represented – from the direct, dehumanising comments of David’s white Irish grandmother to the polite but prurient curiosity of a Butlins holiday rep – but the play avoids reductive statements and commentary. Most strikingly, the play doesn’t hold back from presenting the prejudices of its central character, though that’s not to say that Dave is presented as an unreconstructed racist. This is a slice of life piece – warts and all – albeit one looked at from an unusual and unexpected angle.

This is also a story about masculinity and fatherhood – the script draws specific attention to the difference between being a (biological) father and being a dad. The character of Dave is drawn with real affection and warmth – he is, after all, our protagonist throughout – but the play doesn’t shy away from representing the darker side of masculine identity, with one sequence in particular, towards the end of the play, offering a painful and prolonged exploration of more destructive tendencies. Again, SparkPlug avoids hand-wringing explanations or excuses: Dave’s behaviour is presented as it is, and the audience is left to come to their own conclusions.

Photo credit: Alex Mead, Decoy Media

The play’s set, and Judge’s performance style, work well with the lyrical script. The metal frame of a car dominates the stage, and parts of this frame are removed, replaced and repurposed throughout the play to conjure different scenes. Although the car is a car for much of the performance (it is Dave’s Ford Capri, before becoming subsequent cars as time moves on), it is also a stage – on which Judge climbs, stands, curls and clings. Judge is barely still for a moment during the performance. With a near-static set, the audience is reliant on verbal and physical performance to set the scene – there are no set or lighting changes between vignettes, and the story jumps ahead by months or years at a staggering pace. Judge handles this with style, skill and exuberance – and with a little help from some well-selected music that serves as both soundtrack and thematic motifs.

As I’ve said, this is an autobiographically inspired piece, and Judge offers a short introductory ‘scene’ from the perspective of the son (drawing on his own life experiences), before entering the character of white, Capri-driving dad Dave. This introduction serves to set up the story as an affectionate homage to the man who raised David, and encourages the audience to view him with sympathy and humour.

However, I found myself wondering whether the audience’s feelings towards Dave would be different if the part was played by a white actor. Or if the introductory scene and subsequent monologue were performed by different actors. SparkPlug’s harder hitting lines are – at times – almost cushioned by the knowledge that we are watching a son pay tribute to his beloved dad. For instance, Dave’s difficulty at stating outright that he doesn’t like the Afro-Caribbean culture that attracts his sister and her friends, or his resistance to talking about introducing his son to ‘his roots’, raise spectres of entrenched prejudice and a particular view of race and culture. Would we respond differently if these lines were delivered by a white actor? Or if there were more separation between the characters of father and son?

Photo credit: Alex Mead, Decoy Media

I’ve read a couple of interviews with Judge where he’s talked about his intention to create a play that could be performed by other actors. In the current production, it’s hard to separate Judge-the-performer, Judge-the-writer and Judge-the-son – I’d be fascinated to see a future production with different casting. This is not a criticism, though, as Judge’s embodiment of the character of Dave is really skilfully and compellingly done.

Ultimately, SparkPlug is a tribute to, and an exploration of, what it means to be a dad – that’s where its undoubted strengths lie. It’s rare to see a production tackle questions of race, masculinity and violence in such a direct, honest and sympathetic way. Judge’s performance is captivating, carrying the audience through the messy complexities of Dave’s life with energy and compassion, and the show’s final lines are just excellent.

SparkPlug is a play about men, boys, race, sexuality, Manchester and cars. You’re unlikely to see a story quite like it at the theatre – so I’d recommend you check it out if you can.

SparkPlug is on at HOME, Manchester until 23rd February, before touring nationally.

Game Review: Dreadful Tales: The Space Between Collector’s Edition (first play)

Developer: Eipix Entertainment
Publisher: Big Fish Games
Original Release Date: 3rd January 2019
Platform: PC

I had a couple of game credits to spend on Big Fish, so I thought I’d take a chance on a series I hadn’t heard of before. The Space Between looked like pretty standard haunted house stuff, and the reviews were good. Turns out, the reason I hadn’t heard of the series before is that this is the first Dreadful Tales title by Eipix. But the game’s publicity – and a couple of little in-game hints – definitely appears to be suggesting there’ll be further titles in the series. And if The Space Between is an indication, I’ll probably be giving them a go.

The Space Between is a bit unusual for a HOPA, because it has a framing narrative, rather than a straightforward intro scene. And it quickly becomes clear that the first-person perspective in the frame story isn’t the first-person player-character of the game. (It’s never quite made clear who the first-person character in the frame story actually is.) The game begins in a curiosity shop, and the PC is shown a strange box by the shopkeeper. He begins to explain the story behind the box… and the game begins…

The main game is the shopkeeper’s story – you become the characters in his tale. This is a pretty cool device, and not one I’ve come across before in a HOPA. As I’ve said, the story is a haunted house one – with little echoes of Amityville: Mark and Martha Spencer have bought a house (unseen) to ‘flip’. It’s falling to pieces and filled with piles of junk (handy!), as well as being miles from anywhere. Within minutes of the Spencers arriving, bad things start to happen. The ‘bad things’ are pretty much as you might expect, though there are some nicely off-beat touches to the backstory that I enjoyed.

The game’s design is fairly characteristic Eipix stuff – it’s dark and atmospheric, with some well-detailed scenes and animations. The music fits well with this overall design. While there aren’t any real surprises design-wise here, there are some carefully rendered details (particularly when you find evidence of the house’s former occupants in the form of documents and newspaper clippings). It’s a pretty stylish game with some great artwork – if I have one criticism it’s that (unusually for me) I found some of the scenes too dark, and I really struggled to make out the morphing objects and collectibles. I don’t normally have a problem with this, so I think the design is particularly dark here.

The frame story is one unusual feature of The Space Between, but there are a couple of other surprises in store. When the main game begins, you play as Martha – so, the usual female-character-saves-the-male schtick. However, there’s something unexpected around the corner. I don’t think this is too much of a spoiler… in The Space Between, you switch player-characters at various points in the game. So, although you start out playing Martha, you will at times also be playing Mark. I really liked this twist, and at one point in particular it leant a properly cinematic feel to the game. (There is another fun surprise to the gameplay – quite unlike anything I’ve seen in a HOPA before – but I know revealing that would be a spoiler!)

This is a HOPA, so gameplay is mostly point-and-click movements from one screen to another. There are different difficulty levels, including a Custom option (yay!), and Hint and Skip are available. There’s also an interactive jump map, though I didn’t use this. HOGs in this game are mostly junk piles – but at least there’s a reason for this – but there are also some variants with silhouettes, assembling an item, and one very very creepy ‘find the pictures in the storybook’ puzzle. There are also mini-games here, which are fun but not too tricky, and there are also some in-game tasks (like climbing walls and hitting targets) that give a bit of variation to gameplay. None of the puzzles or tasks feels impossible, but they’re pleasantly challenging. I didn’t use Skip for any of them (yay!).

However, while the HOGs and mini-games were enjoyable, the game does suffer from the perennial problem of illogical and counter-intuitive gameplay as you move between the screens. It’s not always apparent what you have to do next, and some items in the inventory are used in incongruous ways. This is something I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, because it is really frustrating to have to use Hint just to find out how to use everyday inventory objects. It’s also annoying to have to run back and forth between rooms, over and over again, to see if there’s anything new to do. I much prefer games to have clear objectives for each stage and, if possible, to attempt a scenario that’s vaguely plausible.

Once again, I seem to also have a gripe about characters! This is becoming a recurring theme! In The Space Between, you begin playing as Martha. She’s a typical HOPA player-character – running around, finding things, doing puzzles and generally getting stuff done while Mark (the NPC at this point) stands around having a good think. If you’ve read my previous game reviews, you’ll know that I hate it when NPCs send you to find/do something, while they just stand around ‘keeping an eye on things’. There are plenty of moments like this in The Space Between – at one point, Martha has to visit almost every scene in the house, hunting down items and discovering evidence to explain what’s going on, while Mark stands next to a door, claiming he can’t get it open.

Of course, all this changes when you switch to playing as Mark. Except… it doesn’t quite. I had high hopes for Mark. You get a little bit of his backstory revealed as you’re playing as Martha: Mark’s a horror novelist suffering from writer’s block. This doesn’t really go anywhere though, and it doesn’t add much to his character apart from some light moaning about not having written anything lately. You see, it turns out that Mark is almost as useless when he’s a player-character as when he’s an NPC. The ‘Mark’ sections of the game are characterized by internal dialogue (whining) and catastrophic mistakes. I was quite pleased to switch back to being Martha again!

I played the Collector’s Edition, which has a bonus chapter. This is a prequel chapter, and you play as a different character, which fleshes out one of the bits of evidence you find in the main game. It’s not a long chapter, and there aren’t many surprises, but it’s a bit of decent extra gameplay that draws on one of the more grisly scenes from the main game. As well as the bonus chapter, the CE offers achievements, morphing objects and two different sets of collectibles (moths and cassettes). As I’ve said, I struggled with the morphing objects and collectibles in this one. Fortunately, there are replay scenes for all of these, so I did manage to get the cassettes after I’d finished the game (which gives you a neat little endgame treat). Finding the moths gives you a code for a ‘souvenir room’, but I didn’t have the enthusiasm for trawling back through all the scenes to get this. I’m not really sure what the point of the morphing objects was, aside from the fact that they are pretty much de rigueur for HOPAs now. The final extras in the CE – aside from downloadable artwork, videos and music – are replays on the HOGs and mini-games, which is always useful if you’re after all the achievements.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Space Between. Despite some illogical gameplay and a bit of an irritating character, there are some nice unexpected touches here that make the game stand out. If Eipix are planning to make Dreadful Tales into a series, I’ll definitely be checking out the next title.

Review: 2084 (Pure Expression)

Friday 8th February 2019
Central Library, Manchester

On Friday, I was at Central Library, watching another play for North Manchester FM. This time, it was 2084 by theatre company Pure Expression. A (slightly) shorter version of this review aired on A Helping of History on Tuesday, but here’s the (slightly) longer version.

2084 is an immersive theatre performance, adapted from George Orwell’s novel 1984. It is being staged at Manchester Central Library by Pure Expression, a theatre company who specialize in adapting classic texts for unique performance environments (such as libraries, galleries and museums). Pure Expression’s last performance in Manchester was an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The current show, 2084, is directed by Rosanna Mallinson, and performed by Aamira Challenger, Robin Hellier and Simon Gleave.

When I first saw the press release, I was very intrigued by the concept of 2084. I was really keen to see how 1984 was adapted for the twenty-first century, and I was fascinated by the idea that this would be an immersive production – the show’s blurb appeared to be hinting that the audience would be made complicit in Big Brother’s hunt for traitors and thoughtcriminals. This is rather a bold direction to choose, situating the audience as new recruits at the Ministry of Truth, rather than sympathetic observers.

2084 begins wonderfully. The audience are divided into groups in the foyer of Central Library and given headsets. Soft music is pumped in through the headphones and then – something happens. I don’t like to give spoilers in reviews, so I won’t tell you exactly what happens – but suffice to say, I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when it became clear the show was properly beginning.

This immersive experience has headset-wearing groups led through the grand corridors and spaces of Manchester Central Library. If you’re not fully familiar with the building, this would be rather disorienting (in a good way), but for me it was a great way to experience a building I know very well in a different way and to look at it in a different light. The performance’s opening makes good use of the space, and this was by far my favourite part of the show. (It’s worth noting, though, that this first part of the show involves a bit of running around and cramming into a lift – you have to keep up with the pack if you don’t want to miss anything.)

After this opening, the audience is led into one of Central Library’s performance spaces for the (somewhat) more static body of the play. At this point, we begin to experience something closer to an adaptation of sections of Orwell’s novel. The conceit is that we (the audience, that is) are new recruits at the Ministry of Truth, and that the performance we are watching is our induction – and an introduction to the power and control of the Party.

Guided through this by a Party member – a loose version of O’Brien from Orwell’s novel – we watch the unfolding story of Winston and Julia’s relationship. The production is not entirely static, with the audience being commanded to stand, move, march and salute at various times. Iconic elements of Orwell’s novel are staged – the Two Minutes Hate, Winston and Julia’s tryst, Room 101 – and the audience is invited to look on the proceedings as good Party members. These scenes are fairly faithful to Orwell’s novel, and so if you’ve read the book then you’ll know the basic trajectory the show is following.

However, I found myself frustrated by the selection of scenes being staged. 2084 centres Winston and Julia’s relationship entirely, to the exclusion of other elements of Orwell’s text. There is no mention, for instance, of Goldstein and the Brotherhood, and the Party member leading us through the ‘induction’ isn’t quite O’Brien. During the Two Minutes Hate sequence, our attention is drawn to the behaviour of the actors on the stage, rather than to the audio-visuals accompanying the performance. While the audience is encouraged to stamp and shout along, there’s no real sense of what the sequence signifies, beyond an opportunity for a clandestine encounter.

More frustrating still, in my opinion, is the presentation of Winston and Julia’s relationship as one of real romance, rather than rebellious expediency. The play essentially reimagines Orwell’s novel as a love story, with Big Brother’s greatest cruelty being the separation of two romantic idealists. For this cynical Generation X-er, it all seems a little bit… well… Millennial. Or perhaps I’m just getting more anti-individualist in my old age (how very Big Brother).

As noted above, 2084 flirts with the idea of audience complicity. The show’s conceit is that the audience are potential Ministry of Truth workers – we are being led through an induction designed to encourage condemnation of Winston’s actions. Overall, I felt that this complicity wasn’t fully developed. It was fun (in a creepy way) to see how quickly everyone got to their feet and marched on command, but this didn’t go any further. Perhaps that’s for the best… the Room 101 sequence was (as expected) fairly disturbing, and it was probably best that the audience watches as shocked witnesses rather than an involved mob. Nevertheless, I was somewhat disappointed at the show’s ending: it reveals something of a misconception about how groupthink and complicity work in Orwell’s, and seems to imply that the Party would be looking for unusually cruel individuals, and not an acquiescent herd. Still, it provoked a grim laugh, which was much needed.

I found myself wondering why this production was titled 2084, rather than simply 1984, given that it is an adapted (rather than updated) version of Orwell’s novel. However, while I had some frustrations watching the show – particularly around the rewritten ending – I’ve found myself thinking about it a lot afterwards. It’s really made me think about the representation of individualism and selfish desire in Orwell’s novel and in dystopian fiction generally – and it’s encouraged me to reflect on why, exactly, I am so unsympathetic to a version of the story that has Winston and Julia fall truly in love.

Ultimately, theatre should be thought-provoking – even discomforting – and 2084 is certainly that. It’s also an entertaining and fun way to experience the grandeur of Manchester’s Central Library. Cynical Orwell-purists (like myself) may find it annoyingly selective in its adaptation, but it’s certainly an interesting production and worth experiencing.

2084 is on at Manchester Central Library until 14th February.

Poirot Project: The Case of the Missing Will (review)

This post is part of my 2016-19 Poirot Project. You can read the full story of why I’m doing this in my Introduction post. The previous post was a review of ‘The Yellow Iris’.

Beware: Here be Spoilers

The fourth episode of the fifth series of Agatha Christie’s Poirot was first broadcast on 7th February 1993. It was based on the short story of the same name, which was published in The Sketch on October 1923 – though the closeness of this adaptation is something I’m going to come back to shortly.

Christie’s short story is a neat – but rather straightforward – little puzzle for the great detective. It begins with Poirot and Hastings receiving a new client, which Hastings says is ‘rather a pleasant change from [their] routine work’ (though he doesn’t say what, exactly, he counts as ‘routine work’). Hastings’s happiness is short-lived, however, as it transpires that the client, Violet Marsh, is… shock, horror!... a New Woman:

‘I am not a great admirer of the so-called New Woman myself, and, in spite of her good looks, I was not particularly prepossessed in her favour.’

Poirot seems to quite like Violet, though, so the reader is prepossessed in her favour. Is this fair? Hastings can be a pretty bad judge of women… but then again, so can Poirot. After all, it’s Poirot who is taken in by Nick Buckley and Jane Wilkinson, and he’s got a definite soft spot for Jacqueline de Bellefort and (obviously) Vera Rossakoff. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry too much about these murderers and jewel thieves, as Violet Wilson has come with quite a different sort of puzzle.

Violet was the niece (and only relative) of rich businessman Andrew Marsh. During his lifetime, her uncle held ‘peculiar and deeply-rooted ideas as to the upbringing of women’, and was not happy when his niece decided to go to Girton. To teach her that her new-fangled ‘book learning’ is no match for his masculine brains, he uses his will as a final posthumous battle of wits: Marsh leaves all his property to Violet for one year, during which time she must ‘prove her wits’ or the fortune will pass to charities.

After Marsh died, Violet made a quick search of the house, couldn’t find anything obvious, and so immediately came to hire Poirot to solve the puzzle for her. Which he does.

It really is as simple as that.

Poirot visits Crabtree Manor, Marsh’s former home, spots a couple of inconsistencies, and then uses these to ascertain the whereabouts of a second will (dated shortly after the first), which leaves everything unconditionally to Violet. To be brutally honest, it’s a bit of a waste of his excellent little grey cells.

Hastings is thoroughly disappointed by the whole business. He seems bored as he narrates Poirot’s forensic search of the house, unimpressed by Poirot’s discovery of a label that doesn’t match the others, and confused by a last-minute epiphany on a train. As Poirot makes a dash back to Crabtree Manor for the big reveal, Hastings is grumpy and complains that Poirot isn’t paying him enough attention.

Despite his friend’s strop, Poirot is delighted by the case and sums it all up with ‘triumph’. He’s worked out the puzzle, and his client has won the battle of wits. He suggests that this means she has ‘justified her choice of life and elaborate education’, and also that her uncle’s trick was always intended to vindicate his niece’s academic career (assuming she was successful, of course).

Cranky Hastings sees things differently. ‘The old man really won,’ he grumbles.

‘“But no, Hastings. It is your wits that go astray. Miss Marsh proved the astuteness of her wits and the value of the higher education for women by at once putting the matter in my hands. Always employ the expert. She has amply proved her rights to the money.”
“It’s not fair! You never listen to me! I wish I’d never been born!” I shouted, as I ran out of the room and slammed the door.’

Okay. I made that last bit up.

‘The Case of the Missing Will’ is probably not on many Top 10 Poirot Stories lists. It’s a little bit of fun for both Poirot and the reader (not Hastings though), but it’s not the most memorable case. Nevertheless, Christie was clearly quite happy with the central conceit, as it’s one of the plots she reused later on.

The Miss Marple story ‘Strange Jest’ was first published in the US in 1941 and then in the Strand Magazine in 1944 (under the title ‘A Case of Buried Treasure’).* In this little tale, Miss Marple is introduced to kissing-(third)-cousins Edward Rossiter and Charmian Stroud, the sole heirs to their shared Great-Great-Uncle Mathew. Edward and Charmian are convinced that their Uncle Mathew was in possession of a large fortune in gold bullion, but when he died there was no sign of any fortune. Their friend Jane Helier convinces the lovebirds to enlist Miss Marple’s assistance to get their hands on the loot.

As in ‘The Case of the Missing Will’, the detective here accompanies the putative heirs to the dead man’s house, rifles through his property, and then produce the booty with a flourish. But it’s the differences between the stories that are most interesting.

What I really like about this pair of stories is the way that Christie fitted each of the ‘missing will’ pranks to the idiosyncrasies of the respective sleuths. So, in the earlier story, the clue comes in the form of a label that doesn’t match the others; in the later one, the hints come in sly uses of outdated slang (‘gammon and spinach’, ‘all my eye and Betty Martin’). In ‘Missing Will’, Poirot pores over an account of the day of the will’s writing and finds an interesting item in the schedule; in ‘Strange Jest’, Miss Marple sees a possible parallel with her own Uncle Henry.

It’s lucky that Charmian, Edward and Violet picked their detectives so carefully. I wonder if Miss Marple would’ve guessed Andrew Marsh’s invisible ink – and what would Poirot have made of Uncle Mathew?

I must admit, I really warmed towards ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ after I read ‘Strange Jest’. I thoroughly recommend reading them as companion pieces to remind you of the important differences between Christie’s two famous sleuths.

And now… controversy! It’s time to look at the ITV adaptation of ‘The Case of the Missing Will’, and the first Poirot episode to veer substantively away from its source story. Dun dun dunnnnnn…

‘The Case of the Missing Will’ was directed by John Bruce and written by Douglas Watkinson. It does not follow the plot of Christie’s short story, though it makes some allusions to it.

I’m just going to get this out of the way up front: I don’t think this is a problem. Christie’s short story would not have made a good episode of the TV show – or, at least, not one that would have fit with the rest of the series. I know the 90s was a simpler time, but I just can’t imagine us all curling up in front of the TV to watch David Suchet meticulously looking through drawers for an hour while Hugh Fraser stropped about in the background. I mean, obviously I’d watch that now. But I probably wouldn’t have liked it so much when I was fourteen. I would’ve probably changed over to… *checks 1993 TV listings*… So Haunt Me?? Urgh. Only one thing for it…

Picture Credit: TV Whirl

Fortunately, Douglas Watkinson stopped teenage me from having to make the choice between So Haunt Me and Bamboozle, as the TV version of ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ is a pretty standard Poirot episode. It’s also, in my opinion, very well done – I only realized that it’s not actually a Christie story years later when I started reading the early Poirot short stories.

So, let’s talk about the episode…

We begin with a flashback to 1926. A man named Andrew Marsh (played by Mark Kingston) is seeing in the New Year with friends. As the clock strikes twelve, he announces that he has made a will leaving most of his fortune to a medical foundation, with some to be held in trust for his ward (Violet Wilson)’s education. Violet (played as a child by Stephanie Thwaites) excitedly watches through the bannisters with the sons of Marsh’s friends, Robert Siddaway (Simon Owen) and Peter Baker (Glen Mead), but is dismayed to hear that her guardian imagines that her future lies in marriage, possibly to one of her young companions. Marsh’s friend Phyllida Campion (Susan Tracy) remonstrates, but it is clear that Marsh has rather fixed views on the role of women.

Thus, the stage is set for an episode that alludes to, but doesn’t follow, Christie’s story. We have a rich man named Andrew Marsh, who made his money farming in Australia (as Christie’s character had done), a young (sort of) heir named Violet, and some eyebrow-raising at the idea of women’s education. However, we also have a gang of Siddaways and Bakers (the Bakers here are not quite the household servants of the same names from the short story), a Miss Campion and Dr Pritchard who are not found in the source text. And, most important, Marsh’s will is definitely not missing.

The episode then jumps ahead to the present day. The present day being 1936, of course. Poirot and Hastings are attending a Cambridge University debate in the company of Violet Wilson. (As a side note, the adult Violet is played by Beth Goddard, in the first of her two Poirot appearances. Her second appearance will be in Appointment with Death ¬– another rather loose adaptation of Christie’s work. But we’ll talk about that one later.)

The debate is on women’s education – and women’s rights generally. Marsh is speaking against, and Robert Siddaway (played as an adult by Edward Atterton) is speaking for. Robert makes an unsurprisingly prescient speech, arguing that – when the inevitable war in Europe comes – women will be expected to work in factories, munitions works, and even the armed forces. The guffawing idiots in the audience (clearly oblivious to the roles women played during the war that ended less that twenty years earlier) shout him down with derogatory comments about the W.I. Overcome with outrage at the sexist nonsense she’s hearing, Violet interjects and the meeting descends into boorish chaos.

Robert’s invocation of an upcoming war is interesting here. I’ve said several times in these posts that the TV series conjures up a world that is permanently on the brink of WWII, but never actually fighting it. This episode comes closer than many to accepting that a war will happen: Robert makes specific reference to an alliance between Hitler and Mussolini, and – unexpectedly – we actually see a young British man in army uniform, as the Bakers’ son Peter (now played by Neil Stuke) is home on leave for the duration of the episode.

All this is perfectly in-keeping with the rest of the series, but it just feels a little bit heavy-handed in these opening scenes. That probably doesn’t mean anything though. It’s not like Britain’s relationship with other European nations was a particularly hot topic in early 1993 or anything.

Picture Credit: TV Whirl

Anyway… as I’ve said above, Christie’s short story is simply a treasure hunt for our little Belgian detective. The TV episode has to add a few extra twists and turns to keep us away from Bamboozle. Those twists include… Andrew Marsh decides to change his will! Then he gets murdered! Japp turns up to investigate! And he recognizes shifty Dr Pritchard (Richard Durden)! The will goes missing! Hastings rides a horse! Dr Pritchard says he thinks Andrew has a secret son! Miss Campion gets pushed down a moving staircase! Poirot questions Margaret Baker (Gillian Hanna) about her son Peter! Sarah Siddaway (Rowena Cooper) hints that Robert in Marsh’s son! Miss Lemon investigates!

‘What’s going on? What on earth is happening?’

(Violet has obviously read Christie’s short story.)

Joking aside, the story plays out in a typically Poirot way. A man is murdered shortly after making a new will (which goes missing), and there is a small circle of suspects. A red herring is dismissed (Japp recognized Dr Pritchard from an earlier case), and a misunderstanding is revealed (Marsh’s comments about parenthood meant that he had a daughter, not a son). And in typical Christie fashion (though not actually written by Christie), the case hinges on the question of who has specific medical knowledge (were you listening carefully?).

I have kinda mixed feelings about the episode’s ending. On the one hand, I like that Watkinson brings us back to Christie’s short story at the end. It’s revealed that Violet is, in fact, Marsh’s daughter (her mother is Miss Campion). After the pesky business of the murder has been cleared up, Poirot assures Violet that Marsh wanted to change his will to leave everything to her: ‘As proof that she was his daughter!... And his equal.’ This is a nice echo of Poirot’s assertion in the short story that Violet has ‘proved the astuteness of her wits and the value of the higher education for women’. At least the TV version of Marsh saw the error of his assessment before he died.

On the other hand, the revelation that Violet is Marsh and Miss Campion’s daughter leaves a couple of question marks. Violet grows up believing that she is the daughter of Marsh’s late business partner in Australia. When this unnamed partner – and, presumably, his wife/girlfriend – died, Marsh benevolently assumed guardianship of the orphan and employed Australian Margaret Baker as a nanny. When Marsh moved back to England, he was ‘called away to fight in France’, and Margaret married a policeman (played by Jon Laurimore) and had Peter.

The problem is… this isn’t true. Violet was born in 1913 to Phyllida Campion, while the woman was a student at Cambridge. Her birth was registered in England. So how did the baby end up in Australia? (Presumably she did end up in Australia, as Margaret Baker gives no indication that the nanny story was a lie.) Did Miss Campion send her straight over? Did she go with her? What exactly was the relationship between Phyllida and Andrew? Did no one spot that Andrew made a quick jaunt to Cambridge from Australia in 1912, and then miraculously produced his dead business partner’s child nine months later? Did Andrew falsely register Violet’s birth in Australia – giving her the surname ‘Wilson’? Did no one question why a single man, with apparently no blood relationship to the child, was registering the birth of a baby at least two weeks old (and that’s assuming Miss Campion gave birth and then immediately shoved the baby on a boat), with the implausible claim that both the child’s parents had died. The more you look at it, the harder to swallow it seems.

Quick! Let’s distract ourselves with Hastings on a horse!

Despite my concern about Baby Violet’s ocean voyage, I still really like this episode. There are some great little details to enjoy. Hastings’s horse ride, for instance… This is the moment when our intrepid sidekick discovers Marsh’s body. As he rides across the countryside with Violet, he looks up and exclaims:

‘What a charming folly!’

This always makes me smile – follies are never good news in Agatha Christie stories.

But by far my favourite bit of the episode is the return of Miss Lemon’s investigative skills. Obviously, I enjoy seeing her peering over card catalogues and registers with her acute eye for the detail of a filing system. But I also like the fact that it is specifically Miss Lemon who spots a slip from the doctor – he refers to ‘Mrs Campion’, rather than ‘Miss Campion’ – and, from the way she questions this, it seems she guesses the reason for the slip before any of the men. For this reason, Poirot entrusts the task of hunting down Miss Campion’s records to her, leaving poor old Hastings kicking his heels on his own in the car park (at least he doesn’t have a strop this time).

And so, ‘The Case of the Missing Will’ might not follow Christie’s original story, but it’s still a great episode. Watkinson does a good job of riffing on Christie’s story to create a script that is convincing as an adaptation (for viewers unfamiliar with the original). There are just enough allusions to reassure fans of Christie’s stories that the writer had read the original as well.

Oh, and we get to see Poirot in his pyjamas again. I’m building up a collection of these pictures, because I have a theory that the detective’s bedtime attire gets distinctly fussier as the series progresses. As you can see, he is not wearing a hairnet or moustache protector in this episode. I doubt anyone apart from me cares.

Right, onto the next episode (and a real favourite of mine) – ‘The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman’




* Academic footnote ahoy! Just to say, I have the version of ‘Strange Jest’ that appears in the eBook edition of the Miss Marple and Mystery: The Complete Short Stories collection, published by HarperCollins in 2011 (2008).

Review: The Animals and Children Took to the Streets (1927)

Thursday 7th February 2019
HOME, Manchester

This week, I was at the press night of The Animals and Children Took to the Streets at HOME Manchester for North Manchester FM. I played a (slightly) shorter version of this review on Hannah’s Bookshelf on Saturday, but here’s the (slightly) longer version of my review…

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is a theatre show by 1927, which is on at HOME from the 6th-16th February 2019. I call this a ‘theatre show’, rather than a play, because The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is an innovative – experimental, really – performance that makes interesting use of the theatre stage. Written and directed by Suzanne Andrade, and combining music, animation and idiosyncratic performance, the show tells the story of the Bayou Mansions, a cockroach-infested tenement block in the disavowed outskirts of an unnamed big city. The show opens with a twinkling skyline and a voiceover narration introduces us to the city… and then taking us to Bayou Mansions.

In the Bayou, on Red Herring Street, the people are forgotten and downtrodden – and the children have taken to the streets in roaming gangs of disenfranchised criminality. Well-intentioned, missionary-esque Agnes Eaves has read about the problem with the Bayou’s children, and she arrives with her daughter to redeem the feral kids through wholesome PVA glue-based art projects. The Bayou’s forlorn caretaker observes the unfolding carnage and provides a deadpan, melancholy commentary. The children of Red Herring Street – led by wannabe Marxist revolutionary Zelda – are out of control. That is, of course, until the city’s Mayor hatches a plan to subdue them.

I was intrigued by the story blurb in the show’s promotional material, but it didn’t really prepare me for the way in which this story would unfold. The show’s set consists of three blank screens on an empty stage, and the cast consists of just three on-stage performers (plus one voice actor). However, both the screens and the performers are transformed into so much more over the course of the energetic and stylized production. Animations by Paul Barritt are projected onto the screens, transforming them into tenements, junk shops, street scenes and bedrooms. These animations are more than simply a project backdrop. They are filmic illustrations, sometimes serving as a background to the performers, but sometimes a performance in themselves.

The show blends animation, music (and musical numbers), a little bit of physical theatre, carefully choreographed acting and well-placed dark humour to create up a story that is captivating and fun.

The overall style here is graphic-novel-Gothic – for all its desolation, dripping pipes, vermin and vandalism, there’s a quirky and entertaining charm to this dynamic animated setting. And it is certainly dynamic – animated sequences run across the screens, and locations shift with rapidity. Holes in the backdrop open and close to become windows and doors, moving us inside and outside at a staggering pace. At one point, a character dumps a bag into a rubbish chute, and we follow its progress down through the building, past rooms full of leaping children and harried adults, before it reaches the ground floor and falls into a junk shop. This junk shop then springs to life, as a door opens and an actor appears. The sense of movement is fantastic, belying the static nature of the three screens on stage. When one character takes an Alice-in-Wonderland-style tumble, you can almost feel her moving through the air – despite the fact her feet haven’t really left the ground.

For me, the real highlight of The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is the performances. Three on-stage actors in stylized white face paint conjure up the motley inhabitants of the Bayou with the aid of costume and props, interacting with the projected sequences so seamlessly as to almost become part of the animation.

Genevieve Dunne switches between the roles of prim idealist Agnes Eaves and adolescent firebrand Zelda, imbuing each role with its own distinct character. Felicity Sparks energetically accompanies the action on the piano, peering out of a window variously in the guise of tenant, predatory lawyer and ice cream seller to sing out a commentary. But it is Rowena Lennon’s versatile performance that really impresses – transforming (almost instantaneously) from Bayou tenant to caretaker to Zelda’s junk shop-proprietor mother, Lennon’s quick changes of costume and location almost defy the senses.

This is a fun show that utilizes highly stylized sets and performances to create an off-beat and evocative world. With its Soviet and Parisian design influences, odd linguistic flourishes and accents, it’s hard to place where the Bayou is meant to be, exactly. This sense of placelessness adds to the graphic novel feel of the piece.

Similarly, the overall message of the piece is never made explicit. And yet, for all its entertaining exuberance, comic-book style and dark comedy, it feels as though it means something. The show was first staged in 2010, and then again in 2011. At this point, some critics read it as a (prescient) commentary on the riots in the UK. Certainly, Zelda’s war cry of ‘We want what you have out there’, and the show’s refrain of ‘Born in the Bayou, die in the Bayou’ seems to hint at some sort of social commentary. But then again, placelessness goes hand-in-hand with timelessness here, and so it’s also possible that this is a parable for many ages.

I’ll say nothing about the show’s ending (no spoilers!), except to say there’s a nice little bit of fourth-wall breaking that lends a comedically Brechtian air to the proceedings. This, coupled with the show’s performing usherettes, is done with a light touch, which avoids undermining what turns out to be a rather thought-provoking finale.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Animals and the Children Took to the Streets, and it’s a definite recommendation from me. The show’s aesthetic is very much to my tastes, and the innovative use of projection, animation, music and physical performance makes for an unusual and compelling tale about the lost souls at the edge of the city.

The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is on at HOME in Manchester until the 16th February, and then the Lyric Hammersmith in London.

My Year in Books 2019: January

In 2018, I kept a running blog series with short-form reviews of all the novels I read for pleasure (i.e. not ones I read for academic essays, reviews or my radio show - even though many of those are very pleasurable!). This was my 2018 New Year's Resolution, and I'm very pleased that I managed to stick to it for an entire year.

Not sure how this will go, but I really enjoyed doing the blog series and I'm going to try and continue it through 2019. I guess if it stops being fun then I'll stop doing it, but for now here's the first post of the year: the books I read in January.

Thieving Fear by Ramsey Campbell (2008)

Having overdosed a bit on crime fiction last month, I decided to start the new year with some horror. And I was in the mood for some Ramsey Campbell. I mentioned in a post last year that there are a few titles in Campbell’s back catalogue that I’ve not read, so I picked Thieving Fear (as I seem to keep saying in these posts, I found the blurb intriguing). I’m very glad I picked this one, as it was right up my street. The book centres around four cousins – Ellen, Charlotte, Hugh and Rory – and the consequences of a seemingly innocuous camping trip they had ten years earlier (spoiler alert: it turns out not to have been completely innocuous). And the beauty of Thieving Fear is that that’s all it’s about. It’s a slow-burning powerful study of horror, which I found truly visceral and discomforting. It’s not a book that conjures complex worlds, adversaries and mythologies – things that Campbell is certainly good at doing in his other works – but rather an unfolding series of horrors that are rooted in common and recognizable nightmares. There’s an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia in this one, and there’s a problem with communication that gradually escalates as things go on. The book’s strength lies in the way the claustrophobia and miscommunication are evoked so strongly that the reader feels as confined and haunted as the characters. Just what I want from a horror novel – and I swear I’ve been able to smell soil ever since.

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor (2018)

As I’m skipping between horror and crime, this next one seemed like it would be a good choice. I didn’t know much about The Chalk Man – I stumbled upon it in a charity shop in Aberystwyth in November – but one of the many (many) soundbites on the cover describes it as being halfway between horror and crime, so I thought I’d probably enjoy this one. Sadly, that was not the case. The premise is okay: bad/bizarre things happen to a group of kids in the 80s, then thirty years later the former friends come back together to face up to some unanswered questions. The book’s chapters switch between 1986 and 2016, though it focuses entirely on the experiences of first-person narrator Eddie. If this sounds a little bit familiar, several of those many (many) blurbs draw comparisons between Tudor’s novel and the work of Stephen King. The front cover even carries an endorsement from the master himself, stating that his fans will definitely enjoy The Chalk Man. Far be it from me to argue with Stephen King, but this book is simply a pale imitation of his work (and it’s definitely more imitation than ‘inspired by’), particularly IT, The Body and Pet Sematary. While the book has some intrigue and is reasonably readable – and it is, after all, substantially shorter than IT! – the plot is far-fetched and the characters clichéd. There are also a few anachronisms in the 1986 sections that grated on me. Overall, a bit of a disappointment.

Hurting Distance by Sophie Hannah (2007)

The next book was also one I found in a charity shop in Aberystwyth while we were there for Abertoir last November. I know a bit about Sophie Hannah’s writing and I’ve read some of her poetry, but I’d never read any of her novels until now. Hurting Distance is a crime thriller, and I found out afterwards that it’s the second in a detective series. Given that I didn’t notice it was the sequel to an earlier book as I was reading it, it’s clearly not a problem if you read them out of sequence! Hurting Distance is told through alternating first- and third-person narratives. The first-person narrator is Naomi Jenkins, a woman whose married lover Robert has vanished (she addresses her narration directly to Robert). The third-person narration is the police investigation that begins when Naomi reports Robert’s disappearance. There is, of course, much more to this, as detectives Charlie Zailer and Simon Waterhouse discovered. Robert’s wife Juliet insists that he isn’t missing, and Naomi takes a strange – and criminal – course of action to force the detectives to reconsider. It’s a compelling and well-written tale, with a couple of really neat bits of plot and character development that I appreciated. It is a thriller, so some of the twists and turns are a bit larger-than-life (and I did see most of them coming), but I did very much enjoy it because, while the crimes may seem far-fetched, the victims were scarily plausible (and not all thrillers manage that).

It's Always the Husband by Michele Campbell (2017)

Another charity-shop-in-Aberystwyth book… and I must admit I picked it up purely for the title. During my little foray into domestic noir last year, I was frequently found shouting ‘It’s always the husband!’ (amongst other criticisms), so I couldn’t resist this one. Sadly though, this isn’t a satire of the domestic noir’s tropes – it is a straightforward whodunit thriller. The title is a reference to the fact that when a wife dies, the husband is the most likely suspect, rather than a comment on domestic noir (in which, let’s be honest, it’s always the husband). So, taking Campbell’s book for what it is, and not for what I hoped it’d be… it’s the story of Kate, Jenny and Aubrey, who are roommates for Freshman year in college and ‘best friends’ (though they don’t seem to really like each other). The book switches between chapters set during their drink-and-drug-heavy university days (shades of Tartt’s Secret History) and the present day, when the three women end up back in their college town, 40 years old and married. The shadow of something bad that happened in the past hangs over them, and it’s not long before something bad happens in the present. But whodunit? I really didn’t engage much with this book – I didn’t like the characters or find them plausible – until the final chapter. I can’t say much without spoilers, but Campbell pulls something off I’ve only ever seen Agatha Christie do – and the ending totally redeemed the entire book for me.

The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Home (2011)

This book was actually a Christmas present for my mum. She read it and then passed it on to me (as she sometimes does). I hadn’t heard of Douglas-Home’s series before, but I thought that Scottish crime fiction involving islands and the sea would be perfect for my mum. And I was right – she loved it. The Sea Detective introduces Cal McGill, an oceanographer whose PhD thesis involves developing modelling tools for tracking items that have washed ashore, and for finding ways to identify where these items went into the sea. Of course, as this is a crime novel, Cal’s skills are quickly required to help the police solve tricky cases (though not with the wholehearted support of the force). There are three mysteries to be solved in The Sea Detective: the discovery of three (apparently) severed feet on different bits of the Scottish coast; the fate of two young girls from India trafficked into the sex trade; and Cal’s own background and the death of his grandfather during WWII. This last story is by far the most compelling part of the novel, taking in the history of a (fictional) abandoned island and long-kept secrets. The other two plotlines are a bit patchier, and overall I felt that the writer tried to cram in too much story for a single novel. I also felt that Cal’s specialist skills were rather side-lined in favour of more traditional investigation techniques. I enjoyed the book, but I would’ve liked more sea, less police.

The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith (2009)

I love Stephen Frears’s 2013 film Philomena, the story of an Irish woman hooking up with a former political journalist to search for the son she lost in the 1950s. Philomena Lee (played by Judi Dench) fell pregnant out of wedlock and was sent to Sean Ross Abbey; she gave birth to a son, who was adopted at three years old by an American couple. Philomena never saw her son again. The film is a quirky road trip, featuring an ingenuous older woman and a curmudgeonly journalist who believes he’s ‘above’ human interest stories. ‘Martin Sixsmith’ is a character in the film (played by Steve Coogan), and the story is as much about his own personal development as it is about Philomena’s. I decided to read Sixsmith’s earlier book-length account – now retitled to match the film – to find out more about this intriguing story. I was sadly disappointed. Despite claims to the contrary, the book isn’t about Philomena or her search for her lost child. Sixsmith doesn’t interrogate his own role in the story, as happens so beautifully in the film. Instead, the book is a heavily fictionalized biography of Michael Hess (the son of Philomena Lee), chief legal counsel to the Republican National Committee. The book is uneven – it flits between (interesting) commentary on the Reagan era and the AIDS epidemic, and pruriently speculative anecdotes about the late Hess’s private life, relationships and sexuality. This is definitely a rare case of the film being way better than the book.

Game Review: Mystery Trackers: Raincliff (replay)

Developer: Elephant Games
Publisher: Big Fish Games
Original Release Date: 5 May 2011
Platform: PC

I’ve played a few Mystery Trackers games. It’s not a bad series, but it’s always felt a little bit like the poor cousin of Mystery Case Files. I’ve enjoyed some of the titles, including Raincliff (the first one I played). Generally, though, Mystery Trackers titles tend to have a lot of potential story-wise, but never quite develop it fully. That said, I randomly felt like replaying Raincliff the other night – I think this was the third or fourth time I’ve played it.

In all the Mystery Trackers games I’ve got, you play as a detective (very similar to Mystery Case Files in that respect). Raincliff begins with a report of some missing people and a brief intro scene linking them to the eponymous town. The game itself begins in an abandoned snowy town street, with the usual locked shop doors and junk-filled car to be examined.

As you search for clues, you discover hints about the town’s fate, but also quickly encounter one of the missing students. Although most of the people in the town have fled, there’s something stalking the streets, and it’s this unseen foe who is (probably) responsible for the disappearance of the students (who are actually paranormal investigators). There are a few jump scares and animated cut scenes that impede your progress, revealing that the unseen foe really is ‘unseen’ – something invisible is trying to stop you from finding the students.

As I say, the Mystery Trackers games always have real potential, and the story that begins to unfold in Raincliff is certainly intriguing. There’s the invisible foe, of course, and also the discovery of a soporific flower that has been used to incapacitate the students. Later on – much later on – in the game, you start to find information that reveals some backstory to the invisible enemy, and another invisible person with a different agenda makes their presence known. However, the storyline never quite comes together, and you’re left with quite a few unanswered questions and logic leaps that are hard to overcome. (There is a sequel, Raincliff’s Phantoms, that expands a little on the background.) I’ve played the game a few times now, and I’m still not exactly sure why the students were abducted or why everything is frozen.

I will say that Raincliff definitely looks great, and there are some good music loops that add to the atmosphere in places (though there are only a couple of these and so there’s no variation in the music when you reach different parts of the game). Some of the details are really nicely done, and the animation is smooth – which is always a plus when gameplay is going to be abruptly interrupted by cutscenes! It is a stylishly designed game – certainly rivalling some of the Mystery Case Files titles in that respect – and the setting is certainly atmospheric.

In terms of gameplay, Raincliff is pretty standard HOPA stuff. You move between a number of scenes, gradually unlocking more and more landscape as you go. There are HOGs and mini-games throughout, and lots of collecting multiple puzzle parts to open locks. There are three difficulty modes (but no Custom option), and Hint and Skip. However, the gameplay is rather frustrating, and it gets a little tedious towards the end. There’s a lot of back-and-forth in this one – you never really ‘finish’ with a scene, so even towards the endgame you still have to go back to where you started at times. There’s no jump map, so you really do have to click back-and-forth through the same screens many times.

A couple of reviewers have commented on the fact that you sometimes add items to your inventory that won’t be needed until you reach a much later screen. I don’t mind that so much – though you do run the risk of forgetting what’s in your inventory at times. What does grate on me is the illogical and counter-intuitive use some inventory items are put to. Using a stick of butter to grease a rusty wheel or a mobile phone to light a dark space is pretty annoying, but the worst example is undoubtedly the use to which you put a can of petrol. You’re standing right next to an abandoned car, but it turns out you’re supposed to pour the petrol on some ice, then set it alight, in order to get an item that’s frozen underneath. I had to use Hint way more times than I like, despite having played before.

Your player-character in this one is the generic detective – again, pretty standard stuff. In some of the other games, there’s a little bit more detail as to what Mystery Trackers actually are, but that’s absent here (it is, after all, only the second instalment of the series). You are also flying solo in this game – in the next Mystery Trackers title, you acquire an animal helper, namely a dog called Elf. Animal helpers are rather divisive for HOPA fans (and I have really mixed feelings about them), so I’m not going to talk about Elf unless I play another Mystery Trackers game this year.

When it comes to non-player characters, Raincliff does one thing really well, and one thing really weirdly. The thing it does well: Because the foes in this game are invisible, and the victims are unconscious, there is no direct interaction with any NPCs. So, there’s no animated dialogue and no odd scenes where an NPC tells you to do something and then just stands around in the background (which I hate – I’m looking at you, Gregory Logain). Later in the game, you do get helpful notes from an NPC, but this sort of makes sense in context. But then… the thing it does weirdly: The whole point of the game is to rescue a group of NPCs. As you approach the endgame, you are finally able to free the students and get them ready to escape. Thing is, they’re still unconscious. So… you just pick them up and add them one-by-one to your inventory with the other items! I mean, what does that imply? That you’re just wandering around an abandoned with a flare gun, a chainsaw and a young man strapped to your back?? This is definitely one of the stranger bits of gameplay here.

I have the Standard Edition of this game, so there’s no bonus content. I believe the Collector’s Edition has some extra gameplay, but there are no collectibles or morphing objects in either edition. The game doesn’t have achievements, and there are no replays on HOGs or mini-games after you’ve finished. There is a sequel though, which I might replay later in the year (just for comparison).

Overall, I like the potential of Raincliff, but it doesn’t quite live up to its promise. Illogical and counter-intuitive gameplay makes it a bit of slog towards the end. Still, it’s a game I’ve come back to a few times so it must be doing something right!

Performers Wanted for Live Poetry Special

Want to perform your poetry on the radio?

On Saturday 23rd February, Hannah’s Bookshelf on North Manchester FM will be hosting a live poetry special. I’d like to invite poets and spoken word performers to come along and perform their work on the show.

The Hannah’s Bookshelf Live Poetry Special will be going out live from the studio in Harpurhey, North Manchester at 2-4pm. It will be broadcast on 106.6FM (in the North Manchester area) and online (for the rest of the world). Performance slots are 6 minutes long.

Whether you’re a veteran performer or new to reading your work, I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line via email, tweet me or message me on Facebook if you’d like to perform. Slots will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

Game Review: Mystery Case Files: The Countess Collector’s Edition (first play)

Developer: Eipix Entertainment
Publisher: Big Fish Games
Original Release Date: 21st November 2018
Platform: PC

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I am a big fan of the Mystery Case Files series. Or rather, I’m a big fan of the Ravenhearst arc within the MCF series – though I enjoyed the two Dire Grove games, and I like going back to Huntsville occasionally for something lighter. I’m not quite at the stage of writing Charles Dalimar fan fic, but I will admit to getting really quite invested in the Ravenhearst story. My favourite Mystery Case Files games are Fate’s Carnival (for the mind-boggling detail and complexity of the gameplay) and Escape from Ravenhearst (which is a truly bizarre and disturbing experience, even if it does have some problems when it comes to gameplay). It’s fair to say that no HOPAs have come close to those two games for me, though I live in hope.

Nevertheless, Mystery Case Files has been something of a disappointment for me since Dire Grove, Sacred Grove – and since Eipix took over the development. I’m still hoping that we can just do a Highlander 2 on Key to Ravenhearst and Ravenhearst Unlocked, because these were just terrible (and inconsistent) instalments of the story. Broken Hour and The Black Veil (non-Ravenhearst games) were okay, but they lacked the magic of the earlier games. I decided to give Mystery Case Files: The Countess a try, since I can’t quite let go of my Master Detective badge yet. I knew it wasn’t going to be another Fate’s Carnival, but I thought it might at least be better than Ravenhearst Unlocked! And I was right… The Countess is somewhere in between.

You play – once again – as a Master Detective, though it’s not clear whether you’re the same detective who had the run-ins with Charles Dalimar and his dad. The game begins with a short intro scene, setting up a story about a creepy mirror and the thing that lives inside it. You then hear a message from the queen (on a tape recorder this time, not the phone) giving you your mission. Lady Eleanor Coddington has disappeared while renovating her ancestral estate, once the home of children’s author Gloria Coddington (Eleanor’s grandmother, you’re told). When you arrive at the estate, it’s closed off, crumbling and massively creepy (as with most of the Mystery Case Files games, this one goes for the Gothic aesthetic).

Early on in the game (and highlighted in the intro scene), you discover that a large black mirror has some significance, and that there is a supernatural creature residing within it who is most likely responsible for the dark goings-on. Your main objective is to find and rescue Eleanor, but this is wrapped up in a quest to uncover the truth about Gloria, the mirror and the sinister force at work in the manor. To be honest, it’s not the most original storyline for a HOPA, and there are few twists or surprises as things unfold. Rescue the girl, defeat the demon, leave the house.

This is a haunted house game, and it’s very much in the expected style. The colour palette is dark, though I didn’t find scenes too dark to identify objects. As with the other Eipix MCF games, there are some great bits of illustration here – the creature in the mirror is particularly well-done – but there are some fairly bland elements too. NPCs are illustrated but not always fully animated, though they are a big step up from the cartoonish characters in Key to Ravenhearst and Ravenhearst Unlocked. The cutscenes are well done and integrated into the gameplay without being too jarring. There’s also a nice scene in a ballroom that reminded me a bit of Escape from Ravenhearst – though it’s much less unsettling (obvs).

In terms of design though, there were a couple of things that frustrated me as a Mystery Case Files fan. I missed the visual nods to other games in the series (unless I didn’t spot them first time round) – a Madame Fate bobblehead here, a 13th Skull decoration there. The music also annoyed me. It’s almost the Mystery Case Files theme (I was going to say ‘iconic’ theme, but I’m not sure the games are well-enough known for me to make that claim), but the refrain is never quite finished. Key to Ravenhearst/Ravenhearst Unlocked played the same trick – the first few notes are played, but it’s not quite the full theme. If I wasn’t expecting my beloved MCF theme, I would’ve said that the music was good – it’s atmospheric and evocative, and it doesn’t loop too much. In a way, the music is illustrative of the game as a whole… it’s almost recognizable as Mystery Case Files, but stops just short of being satisfying.

This is a fairly straightforward HOPA – you move from room to room, putting stuff in your inventory, using stuff from your inventory, and finding mini-games and HOGs as you go. There are some ‘plus items’ (where you have to do something or add something to an item in your inventory), which some people like but I find a bit irritating to be honest. There’s also an interactive jump map in the game. I try and avoid using jump maps – it draws you out of the story if you start teleporting between rooms – but this means that I end up having a bit of back and forth at times. However, The Countess does have another feature that I do like, and that’s the closing off of rooms after you’ve finished a chapter. That’s done reasonably seamlessly here – something happens within the story that makes it plausibly impossible for you to return to your previous location.

There’s a range of mini-games here, some of which are really tricky. I played on Custom difficulty mode (and I do like games where you can customize difficulty), so I had a slow recharge on Hint and Skip. I did still have to use both though, as some of the mini-games were really hard (and some needed lots of fiddly clicking, which I don’t enjoy). There are some almost ‘Super Puzzles’ here – where you have to complete a series of small puzzles in order – but they’re a shadow of Fate’s Carnival’s Rube Goldberg games.

Puzzles aside, I found the gameplay a bit frustrating. The progression from one task to the next wasn’t always logical – I felt like I was mostly wandering in and out of rooms checking them out, rather than consistently searching for Eleanor (who I occasionally forgot all about). Items from the inventory weren’t always used in a logical way either. Often, the what, why and where were unclear, and I had to resort to guesswork and random tries. Towards the end of the game – and I don’t know if this was just because I was tired – I found it less and less obvious what I had to do next, and so I reluctantly resorted to Hint (I even used the jump map a couple of times – shock, horror!).

Obviously, I’m tempted to say that the characters are also a shadow of former instalments. That probably wouldn’t be fair though, as the Ravenhearst arc is a bit of an outlier when it comes to HOPA characters – no game is ever going to come close to creating a character like Charles Dalimar. The Countess gives us some standard fare: the first-person PC is an undifferentiated Master Detective, and the adversary is a demonic creature that we see, but don’t really interact with. There are a couple of other NPCs, with whom you have a little bit of interaction, but most of the characters’ backstory is revealed through cutscenes. An interesting storyline emerges about one of the characters (which isn’t too difficult to guess, but apparently comes as a surprise within the game), which does add a little bit of depth to the story. However, I found it difficult to get really invested in the characters.

I played the CE for this one, and there were a few extras with it. There’s a bonus chapter – which, to be honest, left me a little confused by its ending (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve played it). The CE also has collectibles – the now-ubiquitous but totally pointless morphing objects, and mirror shards – but there’s no endgame with these collectibles, so sadly nothing happens if you get all the pieces of the mirror. There are, however, achievements – and the CE has replays on the HOGs and mini-games, so you can make sure you’ve achieved all you want from a single play-through.

Overall, this is a decent game. On Custom difficulty (no sparkle-indicators, slow recharge on Hint and Skip, minimal black bar instructions), it took me just over six hours to play through. I did find the illogical progression frustrating towards the end, and the story didn’t massively enthuse me, but I probably will play this one again at some point. The big problem is that, while the game is alright if you treat it as a standalone, it is a Mystery Case Files game. But it’s just not Ravenhearst.