SOMETHING HAS TO be said about the value of sheer fresh, spoof-driven comedy which tosses industry in-jokes in the air as liberally as it does asides from movies, and in which the cast have as much fun – or more – as you do, in the audience. Throw in a bit of a murder, some horror tropes and a lot of camp, and you have the basic ingredients for Deathly Murder: Killed by a Killer, from the collective pens of TOP comedy ensemble. It’s on at Theatre on the Square until 25 May.
It’s a maniacally funny tale which brings together an albino kudu, the ghost of a much loved and much reviled victim, and an ensemble of four who are as culpable of the foul act as they are entrapped in the manor where it all takes place. The hapless victim, he who is the fruit of the union between a screwdriver and a woman who doesn’t know left from right, represents the nub of the tale and the perpetrator, even from the other side of the theatre. Each character’s got sinister mischief up their sleeves, and a sense of the ridiculous that makes the work a mash-up between utter improvisation and the mayhem of burlesque.
With lavish lashings of honour paid to Agatha Christie and all the bloody killers in the litany of the horror genre, the work is light-hearted and self-reflective but far from conventional. Martin Grendele steers a curious and bold line with dark humour and a highly developed sense of the extreme. The work resonates with the kind of corrupt fantasies of early 2000s theatre, which saw the likes of Tony Bentel, Toni Morkel, Mark Hawkins and others, strutting their stuff to the tunes of liberally speckled off-key humour, that will keep you laughing for hours after you’ve gone home.
It’s as much about the work itself as it is about the energy of the performers who work exceptionally well together, choreographically, in terms of physical theatrics and the humour that comes of puns and stories which have lost their serious moorings. Having said all that, the work degenerates at several points into much shoutiness, where more nuance would strengthen it, and many little vignettes punctuated by moments of darkness, which could be held together with other theatrical devices.
In so many respects, this piece is as much about the unabated joy in the concept of fringe theatre as it is about the whole clump of performance options that keep you entertained. Wise and naughty, unabashed in its ability to poke fingers at the establishment and featuring the entertaining splinters of a really funny show, Deathly Murder contains beautiful lines both vicious and sublime, but above all, a thirst that you will feel, for more work by these five talented youngsters: Names you need to remember.
- Deathly Murder – Killed by a Killer is written and devised by TOP Comedy Ensemble and directed by Martin Grendele. Performed by Martin Grendele, Sasha Karlin, Hira Lodhi, Hlumie Moloi and James Netherlands, it is produced by Daphne Kuhn and stage managed by Regina Dube assisted by Melidah Thakadu, with technical management by Loftus Mohale assisted by Reggie Mathebe. It is onstage at Theatre on the Square in Sandton until 25 May 2024.