Picture You Dead at Richmond Theatre

I have never been a reader of detective fiction and rarely watch it on television these days so I had no idea (before I looked it up just now) that Picture Your Dead was the eighteenth Roy Grace story by Peter James but it looked interesting enough to go to see a stage adaptation.

As usual I went on the opening night to take advantage of the ATG+ offer of Dress Circle seat A23 for £36. 

I did not take a picture of the set, a mistake in retrospect, which worked like I've seen TV sets work with all the locations, more or less, on stage at the same time with the action moving between them. 

Stage left was a flat where a young couple lived, stage right was an artist's studio that morphed into a collector's private gallery and stage front was an undefined place where Roy Grace and another police officer discussed the case.

The only quibble was that some of the action was right in the front-left corner where the high numbered seats could not see, including mine.

The story was a good one with lots going on and going on quite quickly as things happen or were uncovered. And while most of the main thread was guessable, this was not a whodunnit more a willtheygetawaywithit there was plenty enough story to keep me fully engaged throughout.

Helping with the storytelling was an excellent ensemble cast with lots of strong believable characters played convincingly. 

The story, the staging and the acting made this an extremely entertaining and rewarding evening.

The icing on the cake was the double-twist at the end which changed the whole nature of the story and provided a good ending. The first of those twists was so unexpected and delivered so quickly that I am pretty sure from the overheard comments that some of the people behind me had missed, it was that good.

I had expected Picture You Dead at Richmond Theatre to be an "average" evening at the theatre, admittedly I have quite a high average, but it was much more than that.