As smooth, suave barrister Malcolm Ross, actor Jason Durr does a fabulous job of narrating this new off-the-wall horror comedy.
He tells the bizarre story of Maurice Trelawny an Egyptologist based in Cornwall, who is sent a mysterious parcel from Morocco containing the severed hand of 5,000-year-old Egyptian Queen Tera.
That night Maurice’s own hand is mysteriously attacked.
The barrister, who is in love with the Egyptologist’s beautiful daughter Margaret (Susie Amy), and an inspector are called in to investigate.
Inspired by the film of the same name, Jack Milner’s script is loosely based on Dracula author Bram Stoker’s novel Jewel of the Seven Stars.
Expect lots of special effects, fake plastic severed hands, a re-animated mummy and a little bit of audience participation.
Madcap, slapstick and silly – many of the cast play several weird-and-wonderful characters.
Sexual innuendos between Malcolm and Margaret are a-plenty as they flirt.
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An amusing menage a trois livens things up when David Partridge as Boys Own adventurer Basil Corbeck, enters the scene. The funniest scene occurs at camp when Margaret brings out an old record player and asks her two suitors to dance.
Explorer Basil performs the strange “peanut dance” – “an Abyssinian dance craze”; while Malcolm steps up with his own bottom-wiggling routine – much to the delight of female fans in the audience.
As characters are wheeled on-and-off the stage it’s like being on the set of an early black-and-white Hammer Horror.
But it simply doesn’t deliver the killer blow. I smiled a lot, but laughed out loud just a few times.
The fine actors were impressive and brought a playful energy, particularly David Partridge in all his incarnations, Andrew Bone as Inspector Doolan, Dean Rehman as Sosra and veteran actor Denis Lil, who gave a polished performance as The Egyptologist.
Runs until March 29.