Nicholas Collett and Gavin Robertson have been touring around the world for years with their detective-genre spoof Done To Death, By Jove!, winning plaudits and awards at several fringe festivals. Next week, they bring the show to St James for two nights on Wednesday and Thursday, promising a pacey, energetic and comical investigation into who killed Lady Fanshawe.
‘Gavin and I have been working together since 2007, originally writing solo shows for each other and directing each other in them,’ Nicholas told me from his pulled-over car.
They’re often on the move, as they take one story after another to audiences in theatres near and far.
In their early days of working together, they enjoyed considerable acclaim for a production called The Six-Sided Man, based on the Luke Rhinehart novel The Dice Man, in which the central character makes life-defining decisions according to the roll of a die – a poignant and philosophical drama.
‘It’s about the ultimate abrogation of responsibility,’ says Nicholas.
‘While touring with that show, we spent long periods in the car, chewing through ideas and we decided we should produce a comedy and that we should choose a specific genre to spoof.’
They both felt the detective genre was ripe for a good send-up and set about drawing on the established tropes evident in the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and others.
It was the popularity and ubiquity of the genre, with its well established archetypes, that led them to settle on their punning title.
The premise of the production is that six actors are scheduled to perform the show but only two have turned up.
‘These two actors then have to handle playing all the parts – the detectives and the suspects – switching costumes, alternating accents and adopting different physicalities,’ says Nicholas.
‘Audiences enjoy being in on the joke from the beginning and part of the joy for them is just watching us trying to cope.’
The show was up and running as long ago as 2019 but was rudely interrupted by Covid. However, the pair were quickly able to resume after travel restrictions were lifted and took the show to fringe festivals in Adelaide, Edinburgh and Orlando, where they picked up awards for outstanding comedy, patrons’ pick and ‘best of fest’.
As they bring their show to St James, they are more than 100 shows in, meaning their Guernsey audiences will – arguably – be seeing the show at its best yet.
‘The show evolves and improves over time because you’re constantly tuning in to your audience and learning all the time,’ Nicholas explains.
‘We’ve added a couple of sections, there’s a bit more sound and a couple of extra gags but the narrative arc is still the same.’
The comical nature of the performance means it has to have a high energy all the way through.
‘It’s like riding a runaway train,’ says Nicholas.
‘You’ve got to hang on and at the same time, you’ve got to look ahead. There’s lots of physical stuff and if your timing’s off, the air goes out of it. But now that we’ve done over a hundred shows, it’s like putting on a glove. The more you do it, the more it tightens up.’
This will be Gavin’s first visit to Guernsey but Nicholas has visited the Channel Islands many times, including an appearance at St James last year in a one-man show about William Shakespeare, set in a pub, called Your Bard.
‘Theatre audiences are very savvy in Guernsey,’ Nicholas says. ‘They know what they like.’
Done To Death, By Jove! is performed in two acts, each of 40 minutes, with an interval. There are two performances at St James on Wednesday and Thursday, 10-11 September. Tickets via stjames.gg or 711361.
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