A Murder Mystery Musical – The Detective’s Demise continues at Just The Fancy Room at Just The Tonic at The Caves until 30 August 2026 (except 18).
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
A bawdy romp of a detective story, painted in broad strokes, with some catchy tunes is what’s on offer in The Detective’s Demise.
What it lacks in detail and style, it makes up for with enthusiasm from the young cast.
Titular detective Ben, played by writer, composer, director and producer Tom Rolph is murdered right at the start of the show, on his birthday and in plain sight of everyone at the party. The big question now, is, as always, whodunit?
On this, its third outing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I would have expected something altogether sharper, more stylish…, camper, with clearly defined, exaggerated, archetypal characters, all desperately defending themselves from their tenuous motives to the murder, which this kind of thinly-plotted farce requires to give it edge and verve. The elements are all there; the vamp, the drunk, the bimbo etc., they’re just not large enough or precise enough to raise the kind of laughs, or create the sort of tension, that a show like this needs.
Most of the songs, co-composed by Rolph and Michael Rincón, have a decent rum-ti-tum style and are well sung with some lovely harmonies and spirited choreography from Hermione Lester. ‘Guilty Or Crazy’ is delightfully complex, but the detective rap is all but inaudible.
If a farcical whodunit, loaded with silliness and songs, is what you’re looking for, then this is where you’ll find it.
Steven Wren
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