By Peter Gordon
Tabs Productions
Theatre Royal Nottingham
12–16 August 2025

Peter Gordon’s twelve plays have been produced more than 2,000 times by professionals as well as amateurs. Gordon’s most popular creation is the “walking disaster” Inspector Pratt, a bumbling, incompetent detective who’s been promoted simply because there are no other candidates for the job.

The Colin McIntyre Classic Thriller Season has regularly turned to Gordon’s plays to introduce comedy to contrast with the more serious offerings in the later weeks of the rep season. In 2024, the choice was Murdered to Death; in 2025, it’s Death by Fatal Murder, the third in the Pratt trilogy, which was last seen on the Theatre Royal stage in 2012.

The three Pratt comedies are spoofs of the Agatha Christie genre of whodunnits. Pratt himself is part Clouseau, the fictional character in The Pink Panther series—who is actually a parody of Hercule Poirot—and part Mrs Malaprop, the central character in Sheridan’s play The Rivals.

Tabs Productions, which curates the thriller season, has a new Pratt for 2025: Mark Pearce. He has plenty of experience of farce and panto, which makes him ideal to take on the role of the inept Pratt who has to battle his own incompetence as he tries to solve a murder.

I’ve seen previous productions in which the actor playing Pratt has failed to bring out the complete silliness of the character or has exaggerated the role. Pearce approaches it with a commendable naturalness; Pratt believes everything he says and does, no matter how ridiculous it might appear to himself or the audience.

One of the cleverest scenes involves Pearce questioning Italian Enzo Garibaldi, a solid Jeremy Lloyd Thomas. Pratt assumes the way to make the foreigner understand him is to talk loudly in a mock-Italian accent.

Little wonder that some people think Pearce is the best Pratt Tabs has ever had.

Death by Fatal Murder is by no means a one-man show; the short rehearsal time a rep season demands calls for the cast to know one another well. Apart from Pearce, those on stage have worked together many times before, and it shows.

Karen Henson pitches the character of busybody amateur sleuth Miss Maple just right, her dottiness making her amiable despite the character’s peccadillos.

Pavan Maru, who continues to get better with each performance, is an ideal foil for Pratt as Constable Thomkins, the level-headed budding detective who is far brighter than his boss and has a certain attraction for the opposite sex.

There are also strong performances from Sarah Wynne Kordas as Nancy Allwright, the new owner of Bagshot House where the action takes place, Juliet Strobel as an over-the-top Ginny Farquar with an annoying laugh, Susan Earnshaw as Welsh clairvoyant Blodwyn Morgan, who during a séance turns not only into a Scotsman but also former Bagshot House owner Colonel Craddock, and Andrew Ryan as a dashed good Squadron Leader Stiffy Allwright, who mysteriously returns after being reported missing during the war.

The play loses momentum somewhat during the second half, but this is a problem with the script rather than the performances. John Goodrum directs with aplomb, knowing exactly what his cast are capable of as well as what the audience has come to expect from a classic thriller.

Inspector Pratt’s humour may not be to everyone’s taste—but Death by Fatal Murder is a laugh-out loud treat, just the thing for a hot summer’s evening.

* This review originally appeared on the British Theatre Guide website