Granted, their choice of Gwyneth Hughes seemed very fitting. What a huge challenge for any screenwriter to finish a classic author’s work. How would the story be completed? It was a mystery within a mystery. I was immediately intrigued by the announcements online last year that the BBC and PBS would co-produce The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Regular readers of this blog will remember that I adore a good mystery. Other authors quickly wrote completions of the novel, notably one American who claimed he had ‘ghost-written’ the ending by channeling Dickens’ spirit! This new completion by screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes (Miss Austen Regrets) does not claim any unearthly connections to the venerable author, but it does bring us a compelling and powerful story, so steeped in Gothic mystery that Jane Austen’s character Catherine Morland from Northanger Abbey would be delighted. He died before he completed it, sparking the literary debate of who murdered Edwin Drood. Written in 1870, it was Dickens’ final unfinished novel. In honor of the 200th anniversary of Dickens birth, Masterpiece has added The Mystery of Edwin Drood to their long list. Ten out of fifteen novels adapted is amazing. We have enjoyed two Bleak House’s, two David Copperfield’s, A Tale of Two Cities, Hard Times, Martin Chuzzlewit, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, two Oliver Twist’s, Little Dorrit and The Old Curiosity Shop. So, dear audience, welcome to our rehearsal room and the madness, ridiculousness, silliness and happiness of making theatre.In the 41 years of producing television adaptations based on classic literature, Masterpiece Classic (formerly known as Master Theatre), has had a very productive relationship with author Charles Dickens. And that is the feeling I want to share with audiences, the happiness we felt while putting it all together and the excitement of doing it again after so long. Every time I stepped into that room, libretto in my hand and fire in my belly, I was reminded of the great joy of building a show with a great bunch of people.
The Drood rehearsal room had to be one of the happiest places on earth-I’ve never laughed so much in my life. Drood is my love letter to all the people who pour their hearts into the theatre that they create-from the big production companies to the little indie collectives to the local community groups (especially the community groups!). On the surface, Drood is just that, but underneath the jokes, the gags, the campiness, this is simply a show about theatremakers making theatre. The Mystery of Edwin Drood may be just what we all need right now-silly, unadulterated fun. The world has changed and I did lose Whistle, but perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. Still, it’s difficult to be sure about anything, post-COVID, post-Sondheim.
Now we’re back in the theatre and back doing what we love. For two long years, countless theatres around the globe were dark and our industry waited patiently in the wings. Two years on and everything is different and nothing is certain-Sondheim said it best, we have “so little to be sure of, if there’s anything at all.” How hard those words hit now. Back then these ideas felt painfully pertinent. Way back in 2020 we were two weeks out from our first performance of Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ absurdist musical about a corrupt government lying to its people and the idealists who are courageous enough to sing out the truth. Welcome to what should have been Anyone Can Whistle. Zachary Aleksander (Jasper), Ren McMeikenk (Drood / Datchery), Phoebe Clark (Rosa), Kimmie Jonceski (Helena), Denzel Bruhn (Neville), Simon Ward (Crisparkle), Tisha Kelemen (Puffer), Jordon Mahar (Sapsea), Madeleine Wighton (Bazzard), Addy Robertson (Durdles), Brodie Masini (Boy), Victoria Luxton (Ensemble), Sophie Perkins (Ensemble), Lucy Ross (Ensemble) Who is the murderer, though? Well, that is up for you to decide! With book, music and lyrics by Rupert Holmes, the musical follows a cast of shady characters, all with a motive of killing Edwin Drood. Based on the unfinished novel by Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a choose-your-own-adventure musical that tosses the crucial question - whodunit? - into the lap of the audience. Now it's your turn to answer one of literature's most baffling mysteries. A question that has stumped audiences for years.
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