Presented by Theatre North and Dermot McLaughlin Productions, the hilarious murder mystery Scream Queer Murder written by the critically acclaimed Martin Lewton will make its London debut at King’s Head Theatre 01 – 12 August as part of the Takeover Season, curated by David Cumming and his Queer Futures season.
This unusual and very funny comedy, skewers queer identity and queer stereotypes in the fifties and today. Commissioned by the International Agatha Christie Festival, it was performed to great acclaim in 2019.
It is 1953 and two queer men are inside the head of a famous murder mystery author waiting to be written in to her latest novel. Excitement turns to suspicion and fear when the penny drops that one of them must kill the other. In desperation they turn to their own language – the queer language of POLARI – to turn the tables on the author.
“Lively and entertaining…playing out a game of role play, capture and escape” Director International Agatha Christie Festival.
Award winning Theatre North, has produced more than thirty five plays and performance pieces which have been toured in the UK and internationally. For the last fifteen years the company has specialised in work with a gay sub text accessible to gay and straight people alike including , Lords Arthur’s Bed, Naked Homo, Billy Budd Sailor, Handel´s Cross, Mirando the Gay Tempest and Queer Bodies and Scream Queer Murder.
Scream Queer Murder is Written by Martin Lewton and Directed Andrew McKinnon with Design by Ellen Cairns. Cast include Martin Lewton and Isobel Arnett.
Martin Lewton said of writing the play:
“Agatha Christie has always had a following in the gay community. After all, both Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple never married… I wanted to explore what might happen if the protagonists of the play were in fact the usually ‘minor’ gay characters As I researched the play I became increasingly more interested in Polari – “Britain’s secret gay language” and this opened a number of funny and interesting ways for me to tell the story!
For most of the last century, queer characters in classic English murder mysteries were outsiders: a bit different from the rest of us and therefore on the surface prime suspects – but also red herrings, too obvious to be the killer. Or were they? Is the author playing with us with her colourful queer characters : or, this time could, one of these stereotypical minor characters be the one – the murderer?”
Scream Queer Murder tickets are on sale now www.kingsheadtheatre.com
