A Shoddy Detective offers whodunnit comedy on the Southsea stage at the Kings Theatre

When a priceless painting goes missing at a private auction, Detective Stuart Pidcock is called upon to uncover the mystery. However, when he cannot solve it himself, he is forced to enlist the help of his old nemesis. Together, the pair must interrogate the colourful suspects that reside at the manor in order to catch the culprit…

It’s a show that has grown and grown from its original 30 minutes, taking in the Edinburgh Fringe, the Camden Fringe, the New Normal Festival and a 2022 spring tour on its way to its current two hours.

Becky Bartram, one of the four-strong company, said: “It’s great fun with lots of quick costume changes, sometimes at the very last second. It is all inspired by the old comedy classics, the Carry On films and Dad’s Army and Only Fools and Horses and Laurel and Hardy and things like that. It started devised by the company and then was adapted further down the line by myself and Mitch Donaldson.

“It started at East 15 where we were drama students and in the final year of the final term everybody had to devise a play. Everybody wanted to go out with a bang and they were all fans of the classic comedies. And it carried on. From 30 minutes it grew to an hour and every time it just kept expanding and expanding.

“A priceless painting goes missing at a private auction and the bumbling detective Pidcock is called on to try to solve the mystery but when he can't, he is forced to enlist the help of his old nemesis. Together they must solve the crime of the century. He is a bumbling detective like Frank Drebin or the Pink Panther but his nemesis is a smooth-talking character, the kind of character that Pidcock aspires to be but isn't even though he tries!

“I play five characters. I play Lady Raeburn who is the owner of Raeburn Manor where the painting goes missing. She is the upper-class posh owner of the manner with her husband. I also play the maid – and there are secret characters as well that I'm not going to tell you about! But we also trained in stage combat and there is a little bit of fighting in the show as well.”

And do the audiences get it right?

“Sometimes they do. And what's amazing about this is that in the different towns that we go to, people think it's one person and then they change. And sometimes you can hear the people talking. And I remember doing the first shows, a few times I thought the audience is talking, they're not liking it, or I was like, I don't know what's happening, but they're trying to figure it out. And when the clues happen, they’re so engaged.

“And when the clues drop, they'll be speaking to whoever they're with and they'll go ‘Oh, that's it!’ And sometimes then when it's revealed who the culprit is, you can hear ‘I knew it!’ or ‘Oh, I thought it was this person.’ It just nice that they get that involved.”

It plays the Kings Theatre, Southsea on June 8 at 7.30pm. For tickets visit the Kings Theatre website.