Review: Inspector Morse at the Liverpool Playhouse ***1/2

Inspector Morse was a TV staple in the 1980s and 90s, regularly pulling in audiences of up to 18 million and spawning not one but two successful spin off series – the latter, Endeavour, starring Liverpool’s own Shaun Evans.

Morse's star John Thaw was just 45 when the first series was screened, albeit he wore middle age in worn-in fashion, which suited Colin Dexter's curmudgeonly character.

Tom Chambers, who takes on detective duties in this first stage outing, is currently 48. But despite the salt and pepper hair, he seems much more youthful that his telly counterpart. So much so that when his Morse agonises over his short time at Oxford University 25 years previously, you wonder if the intellectually astute copper might have also been a particularly precocious teen.

Chambers sensibly brings his own take to the role. And if he lacks a little of Thaw's physical presence and depth, he does offer an interesting sense of vulnerability.

While the late Prescot-born, Childwall-raised Alma Cullen wrote several episodes of the TV series, her stage play – full title Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts – is a standalone, original piece based on Dexter’s characters.

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The ghosts of the title aren’t the spooky kind, but figures from Morse’s past who collide and collude in the here and now and the case that presents itself to him most unexpectedly.

The curtain goes up (metaphorically speaking) on a play within a play where we, the audience, are – aptly given Hamnet is currently in cinemas – witness to a performance of Hamlet which goes tragically awry.

Alas poor Rebecca, the rising star actress playing Ophelia, who doesn’t even make it to her own character’s official demise, keeling over as Hamlet (Spin Glancy, playing character Justin Harris, playing the Dane) is in the process of brutally rejecting her.

She’s still in her death throes when Chambers’ Morse strides from the Playhouse's own stalls and declares the stage a crime scene. He’s convinced it's murder most foul and, as the plot unfolds, it appears it’s his old Oxford nemesis – the arrogant director Lawrence Baxter – who is chiefly in his sights, a line he pursues doggedly.

Above: Verity (Charlotte Randle) and Justin (Spin Glancy). Top: Tom Chambers as Inspector Morse (right) and Tachia Newall as Sgt Lewis. Photos by Johan Persson.

Of course, the first rule of a whodunnit is that nothing is ever as cut and dried as it seems.

Rebecca (Eliza Teale) appears to have rubbed quite a few people up the wrong way, so much so that you almost expect it to turn out to be a Murder on the Orient Express scenario. Plot spoiler – it isn't.

Cullen’s script takes us through a maze of twists and turns and offers a satisfying smorgasbord of red herrings as Morse, ably assisted by trusty young sidekick Lewis (an excellent Tachia Newall), seeks to get to the bottom of the mystery and bring the perpetrator to justice – while fighting his own set of demons of course.

But despite his chilly insistence on setting clear boundaries in his dealings with the suspects/witnesses he knows, the ale-supping, crossword-solving, music-loving detective himself struggles to separate the personal and professional.

Chambers telegraphs this conflict with clarity, although his Morse’s frustration with the whole investigation, and some interference from on high, leads to such extreme physical paroxysms at one point you might wonder if it’s angst or crippling angina.

Amid this are two interlinked stories.

Above: The cast of Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts. Photo by Johan Persson.

One is a kind-of tragic Noises Off as we see the cast of Hamlet, including Charlotte Randle’s vivid toppled-off-the-wagon alcoholic actress Verity (Oxford's own Norma Desmond) and Glancy’s highly-strung leading man, struggle with backstage rivalries, jealousy and quarrels as they attempt to keep the production on the rails.

The other takes us back 25 years to university where a young Morse was part of a student production of the same play, directed again by the detestable Baxter (Robert Mountford) and which also involved a host of figures who have recently reappeared in his life, and which reveals still complex relationships and simmering tensions.

All the world’s a stage, and here the stage and theatre become a metaphor. Everyone is acting a part.

In a story where everyone seems to have something to hide, Colin Richmond’s set – atmospherically lit by Lizzie Powell – provides sightlines right into the wings.

It’s an interesting visual and storytelling decision, although I found being able to see cast coming in and out of the doors backstage and waiting for their entrance really quite distracting.

Meanwhile Cullen’s multi-layered script is directed with lashings of pace by Anthony Banks, although it means you really have to concentrate as scenes and characters and clues flash by faster than you can say ‘to be or not to be’.

It's just a bit of a shame that after all the drama, and when the twisty, turny strands are finally unravelled, the denouement ('Thaw and resolve itself' as it were!) feels like a bit of a damp squib.