Who Killed Santa Claus?/Malvern Theatres

THE late playwright Terence Feely quite obviously drew copious amounts from the well of Agatha Christie with this sizzler of a seasonal thriller.

Figuring out the identity of the killer is a bit like guessing who’ll get the sixpence in the Christmas pudding – it’s always the last person you would expect.

And as in nearly all the plays by that magnificent mistress of murder, Feely keeps us on our toes until the last possible moment.

TV personality Barbara Love (Freya Copeland) has invited her colleagues round for a Christmas Eve party. They all hate the prima donna’s guts with a vengeance, so when a mystery caller on her answering machine threatens to bump her off, there’s a Yuletide hamper full of suspects.

Fuelled by an endless flow of alcohol, the assorted monstrous egos tear and crash into each other like a fleet of rudderless Spanish galleons caught in a storm.

Michael Cross is a fabulously camp Ray Lacey, a telly type who makes the late Larry Grayson look positively butch by comparison. Then there’s the drink-soured Paul Reston (Gary Turner) who spends most of the evening with a glass in hand and a chip on his shoulder the size of the Worcestershire Beacon.

However, the most entertaining character in this media scrum is David Callister as superintendant Moore. He’s an actor with an impressive track record of playing policeman – I’m still laughing out loud from his performance in Secondary Cause of Death, his last Malvern outing.

This production was by Talking Scarlet, a company that is fast earning itself an enviable reputation for creating thrillers in the classic tradition in which murder almost takes a civilised form, with not a drop of blood actually being visible.

And that’s why I’ve got this feeling that Agatha Christie would most certainly have given this fast-paced show her regal nod of approval. It runs until Saturday (December 3).

John Phillpott