Rebus: A Game Called Malice, Edinburgh review: 'Rebus lite'

In the world of crime fiction, Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels are famous for carrying a certain weight. The hero is troubled, the Edinburgh he inhabits notorious for its elegant facade and dark underbelly; and Rankin's stories of crime and detection, while elegantly structured, often leave behind an uneasy feeling that some deeper social evil still lurks in the shadows and vennels, beyond the reach of the law.

In Rankin’s new stage play Rebus: A Game Called Malice, though - a brisk two hours of theatre including interval, co-written with playwright Simon Reade, and produced by Daniel Schumann and Lee Dean with Cambridge Arts Theatre - what we get is something more like Rebus lite. The Edinburgh setting is instantly recognisable as its old ambiguous self; but the handling of it is light-touch, highly entertaining, and relatively free of Rebus’s usual dark forebodings.

The curtain rises with an ominous skirl of electronic bagpipe music from composer Garth McConaghie; but Terry Parsons’s elegant set is mercifully tartan-free, conjuring up the fine New Town drawing room - lined with gorgeous Scottish Colourist paintings - of Paul and Harriet Godwin, he a wealthy investor, she a lady who lunches, goes to the gym, and is trying to write crime novels. 

A dinner party is in progress; the guests include a recently-retired Rebus - who has been brought along by Stephanie, a wily and experienced advocate with whom he once had a brief liaison - and Paul’s roguish old casino-owner friend Jack, accompanied by his latest squeeze Candida, a gorgeous 20-something social media influencer in a super-tight wicked red dress.

After dinner, the party begin to play a kind of Cluedo game devised for them by the hostess, involving the murder of an imaginary Lord Manningham; and needless to say, the violence soon becomes real, trapping all six characters in the dining room while the police arrive to investigate, and Rebus returns to his old trade as a detective with a relish that suggests he should never have left it.

And that, gentle readers, is about it; the story is short and slight, the violence not quite what it seems, and the setting familiar, as Rebus - played with a lugubrious Glasgow cadence by Coronation Street’s Gray O’Brien - offers the odd cynical assessment of the ill-gotten wealth that has shaped the story of the New Town.

What Rebus: A Game Called Malice has, though - in abundance - is a rich cast of characters, wittily sketched and well played. Apart from O’Brien, the cast includes an impressive Abigail Thaw as Stephanie, a brilliantly witty Jade Kennedy as Jack’s squeeze Candida - who turns out to be a superb online researcher, as well as an influencer - and an impressively dodgy and swaggering Bill Hartman as Jack, with Neil McKinven and Teresa Banham as the warring host and hostess. And in Loveday Ingram’s deft production, this fine team of performers produce an evening of old-school entertainment that demands little; but delivers more than enough to please audiences seeking some light relief, in stressful times.   

READ MORE ON REBUS: A GAME CALLED MALICE

Gray O’Brien interview: ‘Rebus is a bit of a dinosaur’

Ian Rankin interview: ‘Edinburgh has these Miss Marple-type rooms’

Rebus: A Game Called Malice is at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh until 14 September; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 16-21 September; Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, 23-27 September; and on tour across the UK until 30 November.