­

 

Bamberg  University  English  Drama  Group

proudly presents

the 1996 production of
 

Jack Popplewell's

Busybody

The Players (in order of appearance)
 
 

Richard Marshall ................................Kenneth Wynne

Mrs. Piper ...........................................Melanie Reynolds

Detective Constable Goddard ..........Mark Urmann

Detective Superintendent Baxter ....Thomas Gennrich

Claire Marshall ...................................Jacqueline Gamperl

Marian Selby ..................................... Susanne Schatz

Robert Westerby ................................Johannes Lorentzen

Vickie Reynolds ..................................Christina Klaproth

Intermission music: Jörg Weese

 

The Experts
 
 

Language coaching ............................Kenneth Wynne

Lighting ................................................Volkhart Baumgärtner

Stage design ........................................Jensine-Bethna Wall, Constanze Reißer

Props ....................................................E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Theater

Costumes ............................................The Cast

Make-Up .............................................Ursula Sierek / Elke Pohen

Front of house ...................................Romana Lautner, Lutz Reuter

Production management .................Lutz Reuter / Cornelia Daig-Kastura

Poster design / handouts / PR ..........Cornelia Daig-Kastura

 

Lighting design and stage building by Josef Weyrauther
Directed by Rainer Streng
Assistant director: Constanze Reißer

 

The scene is set in Richard Marshall's private office high up in a block of offices in London. 
The time of the play is the Seventies.

 

"Whodunnit"

 

Criminal stories and plays always deal with the dark side of man - how criminals act, how they plan their crime, and how they are detected and punished. The term most used in this context is WHODUNNIT, which means basically a crime story very similar to the Thriller and the Detective Story. The somewhat confusing form Whodunnit implies not only that something has been "done" (a murder or some sort of crime), but also that the search for who the murderer is is the central theme of the detective story. The solution can be reached by pure logic (Auguste Dupin, the "father of all detectives", or Sherlock Holmes would be the role model for this), or by the intelligent nosiness of the amateur detective (Miss Marple comes to mind). There is, of course, also the element of pure chance in solving a crime mystery - but there would be no fun in it for the reader or the audience, would there?

English and American authors have been very successful with the detective genre. There's more to the subject than Agatha Christie's detective heroes Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple - just think of famous names such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (left), G.K.Chesterton's Father Brown, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe or - archetype of the "hardboiled" American private eye - Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Theatre authors such as Tom Stoppard, J. B. Priestley or Dennis Potter - to name but a few - show themselves to be fascinated by the genre as well.

The literary pattern of the detective story is reflected both in prose and drama. It cannot be chance alone that one of the most successful plays is in fact a detective play. Agatha Christie's The Mouse Trap has been playing continually since its world premiere in London 1952 - turning this play, from the financial point of view, into a veritable gold mine.

Most detective plays follow the same structure, consisting mainly of three factors - a body, a detective and one or several suspects. The traditional elements are an apparently insoluble crime, uncooperative or dim-witted police officers, the detective (often an amateur) who may be eccentric and the detective's confidant who helps to clarify the problems. Added to them there is a variety of suspects and carefully laid redherrings to put the audience off the scent, a suspect who appears guilty from circumstantial evidence, and a resolution, often startling and unexpected, in which the detective reveals how he has found out the culprit. The good detective play displays impeccable logic and reasoning in its unravelling - structured in the triad of mystery, action and analysis.

The Author
 
 

Jack Popplewell was a popular and successful writer in Great Britain. Born March 22, 1911 in Leeds, Yorkshire, Popplewell grew up to be a farmer, composer, and lyric writer. He also is the author of numerous theatre plays, among them Blind Alley, Dead on Nine, Policy For Murder and Busybody which premiered in London in 1964. His plays have been produced throughout Europe as well as in Israel, Australia, South Africa and the United States. Sadly, however, he is not too well known in Germany, where Busybody ran under the title Keine Leiche ohne Lily. The play, which is subtitled "A Criminal Comedy", can be seen as a parody of the classical "Whodunnit", much in the sense of the famous Pink Panther movies (starring Peter Sellers) or several cartoon series (e.g. Inspector Gadget).

    The play
 
 

It would not be telling too much if I said that the whole play is about murder. Mrs Piper, the cleaning lady in Mr. Marshall's office building, one night discovers a dead man with a knife in his back - but on the arrival of Scotland Yard's Superintendent Baxter the body has mysteriously disappeared. At first, everybody believes that the boss Mr. Marshall has been murdered - after having successfully made everybody in the office hate him profoundly. His wife, too, has a convincing motive for the murder: she is finally free for her lover. Actually, every one of the suspects has a motive for killing Marshall.

Despite the effort of Baxter, the corpse cannot be found. Was it just the imagination of a highly strung cleaning lady? That is exactly Harry Baxter's theory - until the indefatigable Mrs. Piper digs up more proof that there has been a murder in the office after all...

 

Our particular thanks go to:
 
 

Rudolf Grafberger and Gustav Matschl, former and present Kulturreferent, and Rainer Lewandowski, head of the E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Theater for their permission to use the studio

The very friendly staff of the E.T.A.-Hoffmann-Theater for being ever helpful in many ways. In particular:

Josef Weyrauther for providing all the technical help and building a terrific stage setting

Stefan Dzierzawa for being our "go-between" with the theatre

Gertrud Fay for organization of props

Professor Jochum, Lehrstuhl Englische Literaturwissenschaft, and Professor Bus, Amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft, for encouragement, support and computer facilities (many beepy thanks!)

Ingeborg Peñalba - if we didn't have you...

Gerhard Fleck, Director of the Stadtsparkasse Bamberg and Werner Gallenz, Werbeleiter SSK, for generous support

Verlagsbuchhandlung Collibri for not just hanging up posters - dear audience, go and buy books!

Druckerei Geier for help with the posters

Frau Bessler of the VHS Forchheim for valuable contacts "southward bound"

© and yet another production - 1996