A deadly brush with the criminal world

REVIEW: Picture You Dead – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, March 25 to Saturday, March 29).

Showtime! stars rating: * * * * *

PICTURE this… the world of fine art as it appears in one’s imagination, one of exhibitions and exclusive launches, attended by lofty individuals whose tastes are beyond reproach.

It is a forest of ponytails and earnest expressions, a maelstrom of the great and the impossibly good, all talking over one another in telephone voices, and with nobody listening to a single word. This is the pinnacle of civilisation.

Well, you can forget it. Big time. For that grand vizier of suspense Peter James takes this ersatz world by the scruff of its medallioned neck, and rings it bone-dry of any sense of morality, while creating some representational art of his own with a blistering, edge-of-your-seats, sweaty palmed thriller.

This is another play in James’ famed Dead series, and once again we meet up with his favourite top cop DSI Roy Grace (George Rainsford), who is investigating some dodgy and indeed deadly goings-on in the art world.

Inspired by the true-life case of master art forger David Henty, the central plot is woven around the idea that what should be genuine might be fake, and vice versa. Millions of pounds could be at stake here, and it this flip-of-the-coin scenario that gradually stretches the resulting tension to breaking point.

Grace’s first call is to the studio of top art forger Dave Hegarty (former Coronation Street actor Peter Ash) who has had previous brushes – pun intended – with the law, but now insists he’s going straight, guvnor. Maybe… maybe not.

Hegarty has been contracted by a stupendously naïve couple, the Kiplings (Ben Cutler and Fiona Wade) to knock off a perfect copy of a valuable painting that has come into their possession, and could well turn out to be a life-changing acquisition for them.

But it’s not long before things really start to take a turn for the worse. Enter the odious art buff Stuart Piper (Nicholas Maude) and his ghastly psycho sidekick assistant Roberta Kilgore (Jodie Steele), a she-devil who soon starts to make the torturers of the Spanish Inquisition look like smiling outreach workers for your local social services.

I must now tell you that although Peter James has rightly been described as the greatest British crime writer since Agatha Christie, there are some moments in this production that don’t exactly fall into the category of cosy crime with Horlicks before bedtime under the hedgehog pattern duvet.

And I won’t let on too much, suffice to say that Roberta Kilgore is definitely not the sort of girl you’d want to take home for Sunday tea with your parents. Unless you have a taste for the delights of rack and thumbscrew, of course.

The genius of Peter James lies in the ease with which he at first takes you by the hand, gently coaxes and eases you into the plot, and then suddenly grabs you by the collar and plonks you into an acid bath of fear, bewilderment and brow-furrowing paranoia.

He has a unique talent for lulling the audience into a sense of false security of the just-when-you-thought-it-was-safe variety.

In fact, one could say that the idea of a painting worth millions hidden behind the canvas of a daub of indeterminate value is a metaphor for the human propensity for acts of great evil that are otherwise concealed from view. What you see is not necessarily what you get.

For who can be trusted? Is there no limit to what people will do when enormous sums of money might be involved?

And are individuals who should have your best intentions at heart really acting in good faith, or actually plotting your downfall? What is fake and what is real?

This then is why Picture You Dead works on so many levels, transfixing the viewer while being utterly alarming at the same time.

Therefore, a thought occurs to me. How many people will have returned home after this stupendous night of theatre, only to stop and stare at that valuable painting hanging on the wall in the living room, and start stewing on this.

Is that intended family heirloom - for which we paid a king’s ransom - the genuine article, or have I been spectacularly and disastrously hoodwinked?

Oh yes. Picture You Dead is a gripping tale by a man who is also a bit of a priceless, old master himself. Strongly recommended.