Entertaining Murder | Upstairs at the Gatehouse

In 1922, the trial of lovers Edith Thompson and Freddy Bywaters gripped the nation, fixated upon the ideas of illicit love letters, talk of poisoning and what truly happened to Edith’s murdered husband, Percy. It is this true life story, and the pair’s bleak ending, that takes the spotlight in this clumsy new musical.

Entertaining Murder has all the hallmarks of a murder mystery. There is the cruel, eventually murdered, husband, the desperate wife wanting a better life and pining after her younger lover, and a lovesick, jealous, ‘other man’, who all collide in a moment of madness that changes all three irreversibly. 

Yet, what this production does not have is much mystery at all. There is very little jeopardy here, and while the framing of this production, around Edith and Freddy’s love letters, and whether Edith deserved her execution or not, the musical struggles to find its voice, unsure of what it wants audiences to do, or how they should respond, by the end. 

Despite its two-hour runtime, the characters feel underdeveloped. The production hinges upon Edith’s sister Avis, performed by both Dora Gee in a younger form, and Sue Kelvin fifty years after the event, still clinging to her perception of Edith’s innocence and the injustice of her sister’s punishment. It is an interesting decision by writer and director, Chris Burgess, to see Edith and Freddy’s story in this way, yet the script does very little to challenge Edith’s conviction either. Obviously, Edith, as not the killer herself, feels unfairly done by, paying with her life for her illicit romance, but the production does not linger enough on why we should still care, over 100 years later, in a piece that feels a little stuck in time despite its newness. 

Daisy Snelson, as Edith, is aptly glamorous, directed by Burgess in a way that makes Edith obviously pine for a better life, to escape her bullish and abusive husband Percy (Alex Cosgriff) and be with her younger lover, former lodger Freddy (Dominic Sullivan). The lop-sided nature of the script here is that the production jumps too quickly to Percy’s murder before skimming through Edith and Freddy’s burgeoning, passionate affair, skewing our perception of the characters, yet not doing enough to unpack the prejudices that doomed the pair in the first place. Indeed, there feels very little spark between Edith and Freddy, except for a few bunk-ups on a chair, making the whole concept feel hollow and underwhelming.

Sullivan’s Bywaters is impulsive and swings a little too much between emotions, while Cosgriff’s Percy is cruel and threatens, though never conducts, violence, creating a negative and dislikable impression, despite being murdered, creating confusion in the production about who we are to feel sorry for - the cheaters or the cheated? It is a hard-working cast doing their best here to draw out some intriguing moments, especially in the frivolity of Edith and Freddy’s early attraction, but the chaos of the musical’s structure, as well as the already confirmed outcomes, restricts the piece from moving in any real direction.

Kelvin’s powerful delivery as Avis, devoted to Edith despite her sister’s mistreatment of her own infatuation with Freddy, works as a form of narrator, threading the narrative together, using the love letters as a bridge between scenes, but even these, which provide some humour and a neat personal insight into the pair, fade, an oversight that prevents the pair resonating on a human level. As a younger Avis, Gee is pained by her sister’s outcome but oddly stoic about her sister and her potential suitor’s affair. It is clear, in their reactions, that Burgess wants us to sympathise with Edith’s character, but her selfishness and the ambivalence of those closest to her jars.

Musically, the production struggles to get going. There are some nice moments to close off both halves, and a cynical take on the nation’s indulgence in the macabre, wanting to see Edith executed, provides some humour, but other numbers feel repetitive, reiterating the cycle the production feels trapped in, unable to really say what it means.

At the time, the love triangle between Edith, Freddy and Percy provoked outrage and outcry. Perhaps, over 100 years later, such stories of adultery and illicit liaisons feel much more sterile now. It is clear that Edith did not commit the act herself, but quite what we are supposed to do with that information today never comes to the fore. It is a musical big on potential, but, like a prostrate Edith, trapped in a loveless marriage and facing ruin if she seeks divorce, lacks certainty.

Entertaining Murder plays at Upstairs at the Gatehouse until 10th May 2026 - tickets and more information can be found here.

★★☆☆☆ (2*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review