The programme for Picture You Dead credits David Henty as painting the reproductions of famous artworks which feature in the play. It is a neat in-joke, as Henty is a reformed forger whose experiences provided the background information used by author Peter James as the basis of the source novel. The script quotes actual anecdotes from Henty’s life including that he was apprehended by the law as passports he forged contained spelling mistakes.
Harry Kipling (Ben Cutler) is a character who can exist only in fiction: a builder who gives his customers such a good deal they have a high level of loyalty. In return for Harry’s work, Dave Hegarty (Peter Ash), a reformed forger who now earns his living by legitimately copying famous paintings, offers advice on how to clean safely a painting Harry and his wife Freya (Fiona Wade) bought at a car boot sale because they liked the frame.
The cleaning process reveals a second painting under the first, which the fictional equivalent of Antiques Roadshow suggests could be worth a fortune. The TV broadcast attracts the attention of Stuart Piper (Nicholas Maude), an art collector so unscrupulous he demonstrates the cutthroat nature of the art world by employing an assassin, Roberta Kilgore (Jodie Steele). Meanwhile, Detective Roy Grace (George Rainsford) is investigating a cold case murder which appears connected to both the painting discovered by the Kiplings and to Stuart Piper.
Designer Adrian Linford splits the stage equally between the suburban home of Mr and Mrs Kipling and the crowded art studio of Dave Hegarty. The walls of Hegarty’s studio, being stuffed with paintings, double as the lair of villain Stuart Piper, while the front of the stage allows the actors suitable pacing space to represent the police station. Lighting changes, therefore, allow rapid switches between scenes without any loss of momentum.
Act two opens with a tremendous jump shock, but, for a thriller, Picture You Dead is light on suspense. The murders took place before events in the play began, and it is hard to imagine any harm coming to Mr and Mrs Kipling as they are so blissfully innocent, it would be like shooting Bambi.
Shaun McKenna’s script foreshadows plot developments and contains sufficient misdirection to conceal the final twist in the story. McKenna has adapted many of Peter James’s books into plays and now accepts it is impossible to convey the complex backstory of the central character in the relatively brief running time allowed on stage. Asked to explain what has happened to him in the past, Roy Grace replies he would have to write a book to cover all events and leaves it at that.
This is not the only example of humour in the play; one character drops dead before they can be murdered. There are a lot of jokes directed at the art world. The venue where the play is staged is acknowledged by in-jokes galore about L S Lowry, in particular the observation a forger could replicate his works while asleep.
The conclusion of the play is a Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected-style, groan-inducing twist ensuring the plotters get their comeuppance in an ironic manner. Director Jonathan O’Boyle takes a light approach to the material but, in view of the limited tension in the play, it seems a shame he did not embrace the humour more fully and produce a comedy thriller that would stand out as unusual in the stage adaptations of Peter James’s novels.