Looking Good Dead At Sheffield Lyceum Theatre Review

Reviewed by Louise Edwards

Peter James’ Looking Good Dead is currently on its nationwide tour, after a delayed start due to the restrictions placed on theatres and the audience at Sheffield’s Lyceum are the lucky ones this week.

Set in James’ home town of Brighton, the stage is set with the immaculate and tasteful kitchen and dining room of the Bryce family but when the play starts the action is at the back of the stage where we see an escort meeting a client in a disused warehouse for some kinky S&M fun… with a tragic twist.

Meanwhile Tom Bryce, played by Adam Woodyatt (who looked delighted to be returning to the stage for the first time since he was 13 years old), arrives home from work with a USB stick he found on the train. He is going to see if there is anything important on it and then make sure it gets to the right person. Gaynor Faye, plays Kellie Bryce, his slightly neurotic clean freak wife with a penchant for spending money they don’t have.

The Bryce’s appear to be your typical dysfunctional family, with teenage son, Max, played by Luke Ward-Wilkinson, displaying the usual antisocial traits with his noise cancelling headphones and glued to his phone. That is until the USB stick reveals the sickly murder of the escort and the dark underworld of snuff movies and the unravelling of the Bryce family’s seemingly happy existence.

As the action unfolds we learn more about the family as the secrets and deeply held resentments are unearthed that have been building over the years.

The play is full of contemporary issues, as anyone who has seen Peter James’s other theatrical productions, such as The House on Cold HIll, will be familiar with and uses technology to add intrigue and weight to the plot. My husband, a self confessed IT geek applauded it for being technically plausible.

Played out like a HBO crime thriller, stars of TV and stage, Woodyatt and Faye, are sensational and have the audience gripped with a solid plot and script that ratchet up the tension as secret after secret are exposed. The rest of the cast are equally as convincing with Ian Houghton, playing Jonas Kent, an American businessman who looks to be their financial saviour and Harry Long, playing detective Roy Grace and Leon Stuart playing Glenn Branson.

Produced by Joshua Andrews and adapted for the stage by award winning dramatist, Shaun McKenna, The play runs for 2 hours 20 minutes including interval and is edge of your seat stuff. In the final scenes as the plot is revealed you hear audible gasps from the audience.

This is Peter James’s fifth novel to be brought to the stage. It is a thought provoking plot that will have you thinking well after you leave the theatre, replaying the plot in your head as the pieces all fall into place.

Live theatre at its very best – don’t miss this truly astonishing action – you won’t regret it!

Looking Good Dead is on at the Sheffield Lyceum until Saturday 28 August and tickets are available here priced from £15-£45