Geraldine’s play reflects elements of the classic detective story with a comedy twist. Shades of Cludeo – a dagger, rope, gun and candlesticks – all figure in the mystery of who killed Mr Jeffery Hoo, unpopular owner of a block of flats, Phoenix Court. You, the audience, get a chance to offer their solutions to the crime before the final scene – the Great Reveal.
Detective stories, originating from the 1840s in the USA (Edgar Allen Poe) and France (Emile Gaboriau) were taken up in Britain by Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone) and, famously, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes condemns Poe’s and Gaboriau’s detectives as “inferior” and “a bungler” (~1887, A Study in Scarlet)! Detective stories absolutely boomed between the two World Wars, nicknames “The Golden Age of Detective Fiction”, with authors such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, John Dickson Carr, “Nicholas Blake” (C. Day-Lewis, later Poet Laureate) and many more – professional writers, academics, MPs, teachers, broadcasts. Canon Victor Whitchurch, Vicar of Blewbury, wrote railway mysteries. Such stories are sometimes looked down on as unrealistic, dated and trivial, but they retain wide audiences, especially when times are hard and escapism is needed, for example, during The Blitz. Cluedo was invented during World War II by British designer Anthony E Pratt. The older stories reflect ideas current at their time and so today appear sexist, racist or xenophobic, class-ridden, modern stories can focus more openly on grittier settings, social issues, sex, undisguised violence and corruption.
The “classic” detective story often involved exotic murder weapons – and Indonesian dagger, a poisoned omelette, a knife made of frozen carbon dioxide. Poisons “unknown to science” were dropped when cliched but Agatha Christie, trained in pharmacology, was an expert on real poisons – cyanide was a favourite. In Locked Room mysteries, apparently no-one but the corpse could have entered or left the crime scene. An isolated setting – hotel, country house, railway train, island – helpfully limits the number of suspects. The criminal – sometimes a thief, fraudster or blackmailer – is often the “least likely person” with a seemingly unbreakable (:?) alibi. Some Golden Age authors provided clues requiring rivetingly obscure knowledge of, for example, types of pondweed and slugs, potentially toxic liqueurs, dental fillings, or the ability to translate snippets from Lewis Carroll (author of “Alice in Wonderland”) out of Latin!! Detectives, amateur and professional, include eccentric geniuses, aristocrats, “the man in the stree”, a female martial arts expert and lip-reader, observant elderly ladies, forensic archaeologists, shrewd local “Bobbies”, and C.I.D officers. You as the audience for “Murder at Phoenix Court” can, however, just sit back and enjoy the comic puzzle-thinking, if you wish, about Means, Motive and Opportunity, or simply guessing!
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