PREVIEW: Cluedo 2 is a rollocking spoof of a comedy for all ages.

Leeds Playhouse is about to welcome a hit whodunnit based on the classic boardgame, Cluedo on the 3- 7 September.

Written by BAFTA winners Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, and directed by Mark Bell – director of the original Cluedo and The Play That Goes Wrong – Cluedo 2 is a rollocking spoof of a comedy for all ages. 

It stars Strictly champion Ellie Leach as Miss Scarlett, and West End and TV star Jason Durr plays Colonel Mustard. 

Our Larry Budd has been speaking to Jason Durr ahead of the opening show in September.

Larry: First things first Jason, Cluedo 2 isn’t a sequel!

Jason: No, not at all! It’s a brand new story, so you don’t need to have seen the first play or in fact, be a Cluedo aficionado. It’s a stand alone play with the new narrative set in the 1960s. So you’ve got all the fantastic 60s music and 60s costumes.

Larry: You’ve got an amazing team on this. Particularly Mark Bell who directed the Play That Goes Wrong. Classic theatrical comedy. 

Jason: Yes, we’re very very lucky. We’ve got a great team behind us. As you said, we’ve got Mark Bell from the Play That Goes Wrong fame, and also Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran,  who wrote Goodnight Sweetheart, so they’re real comedy aficionados as well. You put that combination together and they’ve also allowed us enormous scope to bring what are iconic characters from the board game to life. It’s great fun.

Larry: Your TV credits include Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders, Lewis, New Tricks, Numb3rs, Agatha Christie’s Marple. That’s a LOT of crime – so you were perfect for Cluedo 2!

Jason: Haha. Yes, and also having played a copper in the 1960s in Heartbeat, that helped! I do have that investigative detective background on telly. But what’s great about Cluedo 2 for me, is that I haven’t been on stage for about 10 years and it’s great to get back and be able to exercise those theatrical muscles again, and just get on and do a lot of comedy, which I love doing. The thing about theatre is you get that visceral response. People are laughing or oohing and aahing – and they do a lot of that in this show!

Larry: And you’re back at the Leeds Playhouse where you played Sherlock Holmes more than ten years ago. 

Jason: Yes, and you know I love Leeds. I’ve got a real soft spot for Leeds. It’s my old stomping ground because when I was in Heartbeat for four or five years I lived in Leeds. I lived in Headingley and on The Calls, and it’s just a fantastic city. You can walk it. Yorkshire people are just really friendly, which is great. And I’ve played the Leeds Playhouse very fortunately. It’s a beautiful space and the whole team of Cluedo 2 are really looking forward to coming up to Leeds and playing the Playhouse. We get to have a lot of giggles on stage and the audience gets to try and work out who did it with what and where. So it’s a win win. 

Larry: And of course, Leeds is the home of Cluedo, because it was made by Waddingtons Games for many many years.

Jason: Absolutely! I’m very au fait with that fact. And what I’ve learned, with my due diligence, was that very close to the factory that made the original game of Cluedo, they had a pub for the workers. A place where they could all go to after work, and that was called The Colonel Mustard. And I’m playing Colonel Mustard. So it’s a lovely little tie in.

Larry: And what do you hope audiences get from the show?

Jason: Well what better boardgame to take and turn into a whodunnit than Cluedo? So you will get to guess, was it Mrs White with the dagger in the ballroom? Or was it Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe in the hall? It’s great fun. And it’s a show for the whole family. So whether you’re 8 or 80, you can bring the Grandkids or the grandparents, and everyone can enjoy it. I hear stories that in the interval people are discussing “No, it was this person doing it then, and it was in this place!” – so there’s a lot of the audience that really gets invested in it. It’s a laugh a minute, and there’s the Play That Goes Wrong vibe that Mark Bell brings to it, so there’s a lot of physical comedy too. 

Cluedo 2 runs from the 3rd to the 7th of September. Tickets are on sale now at https://www.leedsplayhouse.org.uk/event/cluedo-2/