Michelle Collins

Motorhome Marilyn

24/08/25

Gilded Balloon Patter House (Doonstairs)

Our last Fringe show of 2025 is Motorhome Marilyn, a choice inspired by my mum, who listened to Michelle Collins talking about the play on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, and was taken with its backstory. Back in the late 90s, Collins was in LA, trying to build on her UK fame. While she was there, she noticed an old lady emerging from a dilapidated motor home, dressed as Marilyn Monroe. The image stayed with her for years until, in 2018, she mooted the idea for a play to her writer friend, Stewart Purmutt, and they started work on it. When Purmutt died in 2024, Ben Weatherill took over, and now Motorhome Marilyn – more than quarter of a century in the making – has finally parked up at this year’s Festival.

The set, by Joshua Beaumont and Matthew Emeny, is pretty lavish by Fringe standards. We’re inside a camper van, stuffed to the pop-top with Monroe memorabilia. There are posters, tea towels, mugs and cushion covers: if there’s an available surface, Marilyn’s face adorns it. And there’s Denise (Collins), a Marilyn lookey-likey, whose own identity has been subsumed over the years, so that she’s no longer sure who she really is.

There’s also Bobby, Denise’s confidante, who just happens to be a snake…

Directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones, the story works quite well: there’s a Miss Havisham-like quality to Denise, who is tragically stuck in a role she’s aged out of. Her hopes for stardom have come to nought, but she’s nothing else to cling to, no option but to don that platinum-blonde wig and paint on a scarlet smile. Collins imbues the character with pathos, although there are moments when I’d like to to see her emotions heightened – with some Eastenders-style excessiveness, perhaps.

Occasionally, too much is spelled out for the audience: we are not left to infer anything, but spoon fed each detail. This detracts from the authenticity of the dialogue, which is a shame. Nonetheless, Motorhome Marilyn is a sometimes funny and always engaging piece of work, an ode to failure and broken dreams.

3.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Cluedo

10/05/22

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

The game of Cluedo was something I only played occasionally as a kid – and, because I had an annoying habit of disobeying the rules (why would I answer questions honestly if I might be the murderer?), I was rarely asked to play a second time, as my presence tended to plunge every game into chaos.

This stage version, based on an original screenplay by Jonathan Lynn and adapted by Sandy Rustin, is pretty chaotic too. It’s directed by Mark Bell (of The Play That Goes Wrong) and, as you might expect, leans heavily into the absurd.

All the usual suspects are in evidence: the mysterious Miss Scarlett (Michelle Collins), the accident-prone Reverend Green (Tom Babbage) and the dim-witted Colonel Mustard (Wesley Griffith). Throw in the pompous Professor Plum (Daniel Casey) the enigmatic Mrs White (Etisyai Philip) and the boozy Mrs Peacock (Judith Amsenga) and we have the full set. Of course there’s a butler, Wadsworth (Jean Luke-Worrell), who acts as our guide and explains that those colour-coded names are simply pseudonyms. The six guests have been invited here by a certain ‘Mr Boddy’, who has information about their nefarious goings-on. Each of them is issued with their own unique murder weapon (you all know what they are) and the fun dutifully ensues.

And it is fun, provided you don’t pause too long to consider the sheer improbability of it all. Without wasting any time, the story galumphs happily from one unlikely event to another. A cunningly devised set is repeatedly opened up like a puzzle box to reveal secret corridors and adjacent rooms and there’s plenty of silly, tongue-twisty wordplay – particularly from Luke-Worrell: his rapid fire replay of ‘what’s happened so far’ is the play’s best sequence and earns a round of applause all of its own. Hats off to Harry Bradley, who keeps popping up in a variety of guises only to be promptly murdered – it’s a living of a kind, I suppose. A repeated motif where a character utters another character’s name ad infinitum is also the cause of much mirth and it’s clear that tonight’s audience are having great fun with the proceedings.

And that’s pretty much what Cluedo is – fast, funny and frenetic, it does what it says on the Waddington’s box.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney