Elvisly Yours

I’ve gotta tell you the truth. I’m going to be up front and honest.

Elvis has never really done it for me.

Sure, I flirt with the idea of fashioning a 50’s style quiff from time to time. I bust my best moves in front of the mirror, wearing loud sunglasses and louder trousers whenever the opportunity presents itself. Company or no company.

But that is as far as it goes, where the love affair ends. Never liked the music. Never liked the man. Burn me at the stake......Or burn me a steak, as the fat man himself would no doubt holler (cue tumbleweed).

And so, it was difficult to see how Caroline Dunford’s Suspicious Minds was going to exceed my generally low expectations given that I have little to no interest in the central figure.

But wait! I’m All Shook Up!

What we have here is a fascinatingly constructed psychological thriller with some electrifying performances!

Dave, John and Fiona have known each other since school. A time when they were young, eager and alive with promise. But time has marched forward and the world is not what they expected or desired. For John, Elvis is the answer to everything. A beacon of hope, an obsession worth obsessing over. For everyone else, happiness is now all that they crave. But murder is on the horizon. Their lives are about to be changed forever and not even The King can save them from that.

The play twists and turns at break neck speed to the very last, leaving the audience gripping onto the side of their chairs for dear life. We jump from times and places like a magical bouncy ball, fitting the pieces back together again as we go. By the end, the picture is clear though quietly devastating.

I love writing of such bleak hilarity that it leaves the audience eating their empty pint glasses. It is a sight to behold. Not that the show is all death and misery. Life isn’t that bad, you know. It’s hysterical!

The cast are all fantastic, though a special applause must go to Allan Scott-Douglas as the Elvis-mad John. He is both hilarious and frightening and the same time. Oh, and he’s got quite a singing voice too.

There is music. There is laughter. There is tragedy. All wrapped up in 80 minutes.