Review: The Real Inspector Hound

 Gabe Joseph

“A rattling good evening out. I was held.”

The average school play is an exercise in emotional range. Coming out of a production, I once heard ‘it was interesting to see that side of the pupils’. Whilst that is true, the 6th form production of The Real Inspector Hound was not full of emotional monologues or the exploration of some hero’s tortured psychology, in fact, it was a farce and a piece of meta-theatre. 

Arnav as Magnus Muldoon

A farce is a romp, it is a comedy that is predicated on a chain of absurd and largely illogical events happening in succession. Think slapstick, The Producers, or things of that ilk. This art form was wonderfully executed through the exaggerated overacting of skilled performers such as Anuj S and Tom B to name just a few. 

Tom as Lady Muldoon and Jackson as Simon

The first performance of The Real Inspector Hound was at the Criterion Theatre in London on 17 June 1968. Tom Stoppard’s pastiche not just of theatre, or his critical colleagues but a direct mockery of his life and experience as a theatre goer in the early 60s. The text does this with the comedy of its two main characters, the reviewers Moon and Birdboot, played by Arie S and Theodore M, who provided exceedingly pretentious questions throughout the play. Fitting then that sixties typified nonconformity, creativity and expression – whilst remaining in the firm grasp of theatre tradition.

Theodore and Arie as the critics Moon and Birdboot

This setting led neatly to the metatheatrical streak running through the play where the fourth wall gets kicked down at various points and both character and plot break down. Metatheatre can be defined as when theatre knows it's theatre, it talks about being theatre.  In this case, the reviewers who the play centres around cleverly get caught up in a series of events that mirror the play they're watching. This is a difficult effect to pull off convincingly but it was done expertly by the skilled cast and under the leadership of the director Dr Pryce.
 

Tom as Lady Muldoon, Arnav as Magnus Muldoon, Anuj as Felicity, Max as Drudge, Theodore as Moon, Ollie as Drudge, Fedor as stage hand/Gary and Arie as Birdboot

Furthermore, the play the reviewers are watching is specifically designed to mock the classic whodunnit style and the reviewers act as a clear metatheatrical critique of theatre as an artform. In many ways, the plot of the play the reviewers are watching  is also a pastiche, mocking The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie – a theatrical institution written not long before the play that still runs to this day. In this way, the play is an archetypal whodunnit - a high stakes murder investigation - but it gets turned on its head in The Real Inspector Hound.

All of these elements came across incredibly well, extremely strongly and the acting was tremendously effective. It was a joy of a production to watch and was truly indicative of the fun and community that can be brought about by the joy of theatre.