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The Glasgow Poisoner: A New Musical

Òran Mór, Glasgow

Four stars

 

How to get away with murder? One answer to this age old driving force of pulp fiction the world over might be to look up the historical advocates of the soon to be abolished Not Proven verdict. This long time fixture of the Scottish legal system has been a questionable fudge that effectively gave guilty parties a Get Out of Jail Free card. This was certainly the case back in 1857 when Glasgow society girl Madeleine Smith knocked off her secret French beau Pierre with a dose of arsenic after getting a better offer that also enabled her to stay in the family way. 

 

Such is the starting point for Tom Cooper and Jen McGregor’s bite size musical rendering of this much adapted true crime story for A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s latest season of lunchtime theatre. From the moment Morgan E. Ross’s wannabe pamphleteer Plume steps up to tell the tale to an old school parlour piano soundtrack played live by Sam Macdonald, it is the stuff of prime time post modern period drama in waiting.

 

The murder and events leading up to it are dealt with pretty quickly, as David Joseph Healey’s Pierre and Chiara Sparkes’ Madeleine play out a series of quick-fire episodes, from the illicit amour’s operatic consummation to the purchase of the poison and the death throes that follow. Once the Not Proven verdict is given, the story becomes less clear-cut. In search of an exclusive, Plume has the couple role-play assorted scenarios, led by Pierre and Madeleine’s copious correspondence as clues.

 

The result in McGregor’s ingeniously scripted production, co-directed with Cooper, who also composes the music, is a gothic confection that has tremendous fun with its subject matter by way of some fabulous showtunes. These are brought to life with epic abandon in choreographer Hannah Docherty’s set-piece routines. Like all good detective yarns, Cooper and McGregor’s story also questions everything. Was Madeleine merely a spoilt little rich girl having fun, or was Pierre manipulating her? As for Plume, whether sensationalist voyeuristic hack or forensic documentarian and purveyor of truth, the future of true crime podcasts starts here.

 

Co-presented with The Gaiety Ayr and Paisley Town Hall where the show gets another life, and played out on Heather Grace Currie’s ornate set, nobody is let off the hook here. As Plume lays out prospective scenarios, all three actors deliver with a knowing archness that also sees them in fine singing voice. Who is guilty, not guilty or something more complex may remain ambiguous, but on the evidence presented here, makes for a thrillingly deadly affair.


The Herald, September 25th 2025

 

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