Peter James’ Picture You Dead has been brought to life on to the stage, bringing a crime thrilling Roy Grace mystery to audiences who are riding along with the mysterious adventure. It has hit the stage at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal and the question is – who can you trust?
The story follows two detectives who are reopening a cold case due to the emergence of some new evidence. The crime is intertwined within the art world, surrounding a long lost artifact, a painting that has falling into the hands of a suburban couple from Brighton – who are unaware of the horrors and danger they will face since becoming the owners of this illustrious painting.
The stage adaptation, by Shaun McKenna, took a different angle to the standard James novel, focusing it more around every character, rather than the eyes of Detective Grace. This worked well for stage as the story felt thorough and flowed very well throughout the piece. The continuous thickening of the plot was excellent as it kept everyone guessing who can be trusted and what is the outcome going to be at the climax.
The directing by Jonathan O’Boyle was great, staging and execution of space and pauses worked seamlessly.
The approach of the style of acting and character work seemed confusing at times. With the genre and theme being crime; murder mystery, suspenseful, the character and acting styles seemed to jump from serious naturalistic storytelling to, in essence, satire and verging on becoming a farce. There felt like there was a mix of certain characters were very natural and genuine and then other characters seemed very over the top and excessive. Granted, both types of characters worked well with the system and the storytelling, however, having the mix of both felt puzzling and clashes at times. It would bring you in and out of different emotions as a viewer, not knowing whether you’re supposed to feel gripped and on the edge of every detail or relaxed and finding the characters humourous and playful.
Each performer played their characters very well. Mark Oxtoby as Dave Hegarty was excellent at keeping the audience guessing whether or not he was going to double or triple cross everyone with his amazing delivery of the depth of his character and characteristics he implemented.
Jodie Steele had a great arc on the final third of the piece as Roberta Kilgrove were this stern, unfazed killer began to lose patience and restraint, almost becoming desperate by the end of the characters journey and this was executed brilliantly by Steele.
The set and lighting by Adrian Linford and Jason Taylor were both simple but very effective as it never felt cluttered at any point, whilst allowing for quick transitions between scenes and locations which kept the flow going perfectly, as well as using the front of the stage as the police station in between transitions so Detectives Roy Grace – played by George Rainsford – and Bella Moy – played by Gemma Stroyan – could keep the story going with small, quick details updates about the case, foreshadowing the upcoming scenes.
The story as a whole worked well. The thrilling “what’s going to happen next” suspense was there throughout as the storytelling and writing delivered that doubt in the audience mind of who can be trusted. The choice in acting style and delivery of characters left a lot to be answered and never fully allowed you to become fully engrossed in the story or character as a viewer.
Get your tickets @ https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/picture-you-dead/theatre-royal-glasgow/
Theatre Scotland 
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