But the Dunedin Repertory Society has a great mind-bending alternative.
It is staging The Real Inspector Hound by playwright Tom Stoppard — a parody of the classic whodunnit — starting tomorrow at Dunedin’s Playhouse Theatre.
The show follows the society’s recent staging of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, and is part of the society’s homage to the 70th anniversary of the popular play.
Director Brent Caldwell said The Real Inspector Hound was first performed in 1968 in London, creating a sensation when it opened next door to Christie’s long-running The Mousetrap.
"The Mousetrap producers were upset that The Real Inspector Hound revealed, in a way, the well-guarded secret twist to their play — but they couldn’t object publicly without drawing attention to the nature of the twist."
The Real Inspector Hound is absurdist in style, so farce, hilarity and just plain ridiculousness are guaranteed.
It was "a play-within-a-play", containing two main characters who are theatre critics watching a new detective play — itself a parody of conventional stage thrillers.
"The plot consists of both the experience of the critics and the narrative arc of the play they are reviewing.
"The private lives of the critics become inextricably mixed with those of the play’s characters, until some characters end up dead and the real Inspector Hound proves to be ... well, that would be telling."
The play opens tomorrow and runs until December 3.
