Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder!, Ambassadors Theatre review — mischievous musical satirises true-crime mania

Ever since Serial arrived on the scene a decade ago, podcasts devoted to true crime have soared in popularity — so much so that Disney+’s Only Murders in the Building fabricated a comic riposte, impishly sending up the genre while creating something every bit as addictive.

Into this arena strides Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder!, a daft and delightful comedy musical about two social misfits from Hull whose shoestring podcast bursts into the true-crime stratosphere when murder arrives on their doorstep. A hit at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022, it’s a show that riffs on the popularity of murder mysteries, where armchair detection can make a killing, and raises a few of the ethical complexities of entangling entertainment with real-life crime.

Shy, reclusive Kathy and bolshie, outspoken Stella — Bronté Barbé and Rebekah Hinds, both excellent — are struggling to break through from their makeshift studio in Kathy’s mum’s garage. But when true-crime-podcast superstar Felicia Taylor (Hannah Jane Fox) arrives in town and is promptly murdered — apparently by the killer whose case she’d solved — Kathy and Stella get sucked into a live whodunnit. Soon they are grappling with clues, forensics and the ire of Detective Inspector Sue Shaw (Elliotte Williams-N’Dure) who, in time-honoured fashion, takes a dim view of amateur sleuths mucking about in the morgue.

The whole thing is delivered with jaunty tongue-in-cheek flair, as the style ricochets from melodramatic excess to moments of genuine pathos. Matthew Floyd Jones’s songs bring a droll, down-to-earth northern twist to musical staples — power ballad, love duet, soul-searching solo — and Fabian Aloise’s choreography sends the wannabe detectives spinning around the stage on their humble office chairs. Meanwhile, the script, by Jon Brittain (who co-directs with Aloise) touches on the strange appeal of murder stories — the two friends bonded as lonely schoolgirls over a shared love of gruesome crime fiction — and the lure of fame. With superstardom dangled in front of them, should Stella use her editing skills to “tweak” the evidence and move the case along?

Ironically, the show’s own success has thrown up similar challenges to those faced by its protagonists. It arrives in the West End expanded from its original shorter format and has perhaps lost some of its charm in the process. It’s over-amplified — to the point where lyrics become inaudible — and somewhat oversold. It feels as though it’s pushing too hard when it doesn’t need to; the most effective scenes are often the quietest. Meanwhile, even granted that it is deliberately quirky, the show could conduct its interrogation of issues with a bit more rigour.

At its best, however, this is still a hugely likeable, self-deprecating piece, bubbling with mischievous energy and carried by two cracking central performances. For all the slicing and dicing, this is a warm-hearted show about friendship.

★★★☆☆

To September 14, kathyandstella.com