Peter James is one of the world’s most successful thriller writers. His fictional character Roy Grace, the lead character of his police procedural novels which all contain the word “dead” in their title, is reported to be Queen Camilla’s favourite detective.
Over the past decade, James’s novels have been turned into stage plays. They are touted as the most successful modern-day crime franchise on stage since Agatha Christie.
James has entrusted the adaptations to Shaun McKenna, who is as adept at writing for the stage as James is writing for the page. Picture You Dead is the seventh of James’s books to grace—if you’ll pardon the pun—UK theatres and is based on a real-life experience.
James was invited to lunch by David Henty, an art forger and now expert copier of famous paintings. Henty served time in prison for forging passports. His forgeries were supposed to be brilliant, apart from the fact that he spelt Britannic Majesty incorrectly. As his character in Picture You Dead says, “prison art classes were my salvation” because he learned to copy the works of almost any painter you can name.
James was so taken by the murky world of art fraud that he wrote Picture You Dead, which focuses on greed, deception and murder. It features a financially struggling couple, Harry and Freya Kipling, authentically played by Ben Cutler and Fiona Wade, who unwittingly buy a painting in a car boot sale. They go on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow where art expert Oliver De Souza, a flamboyant Adam Morris, explains that if it is an original by French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard, it could be worth at least £4 million.
If you’re a fan of the television series Grace, you may regard John Simm as the quintessential Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. On stage, he is played by George Rainsford, who previously took the role in the adaptation of James’s novella Wish You Were Dead. In some people’s eyes, Rainsford may be more suited to the role.
Whereas Simm can be surly and weighed down by personal problems, Rainsford comes over as a determined, efficient copper intent on catching criminals. That’s because McKenna’s script concentrates on the villains—who are more fascinatingly drawn—rather than giving us anything but the briefest of details about Grace’s private life.
Some of the main characters from the books and previous plays are omitted from Picture You Dead, so Grace gets support from Maltesers-eating Detective Sergeant Bella Moy, solidly played by Gemma Stroyan.
There are excellent performances from Peter Ash as Dave Hegarty who tries to resist being dragged back into crime, Nicholas Maude as eccentric, covetous art dealer Stuart Piper, Jodie Steele as his ruthless “consultant” Roberta Kilgore and Mark Oxtoby as Archie Goff, the burglar who gets more than he bargained for after becoming involved with Piper.
Jonathan O’Boyle is directing his third Peter James play and delivers a fast-paced production which has twists, turns and the occasional shock to make you jump.
Picture You Dead is not so much a whodunnit as a will-they-get-away-with-it. You may think you’ll see the end coming, but you might not get the full picture.