Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts (touring) ★★★★

After 13 novels and 33 episodes of the prestigious TV adaptation, erudite, classical music-loving, real ale-drinking Inspector Morse is firmly ensconced in not only the public’s imagination and affection. With such an iconic British character, the popular appeal of putting him on stage seems obvious – but such a venture is not without potential pitfalls. John Thaw had seven series to build up the complexity of his obdurate, brilliant but flawed detective. Tom Chambers has two hours with an interval to fill those well-trodden brown lace-ups.

INSPECTOR MORSE: HOUSE OF GHOSTS, penned by Alma Cullen, who wrote episodes for the ITV crime drama series, including The Secret of Bay 5B (1989), The Infernal Serpent (1990), Fat Chance (1991) and perhaps her best The Death of The Self (1992), is an original story written for the stage. In fact, the script cleverly leans into the theatricality of its surroundings, with the opening scenes being a production of Hamlet. Of course, this being Morse, the actress playing Ophelia coughs up blood, and before you can finish a soliloquy, she’s off to “the undiscovered country”. To be or not to be murder is the question soon dispensed with, and Morse is on the trail of a killer.

The joy of a good detective story is coming to it fresh, and there will be no plot spoilers here. Suffice to say, Cullen’s twists and turns lead Morse to his own personal “house of ghosts”, where events from a quarter of a century ago return to haunt him. It’s certainly a weighty mystery, spanning 25 years. Swirling into the mix a mysterious heckler with an Irish accent, a photo from times past, a priest who is bound by the confessional, a tyrannical director who is desperate for his career to get back on track and some poisonous hate mail, there are certainly some classic and juicy murder mystery elements.

What doesn’t quite work is that the play ironically feels like a TV show. Despite the theatrical grandeur of the opening scene, Cullen, as a television writer, is too fond of short scenes in quick succession and intimate locations that on telly can be filmed to give visual interest. And she commits that most heinous of crimes: there’s way too much tell rather than show. Consider Rachel Wagstaff’s pitch-perfect adaptation of The Mirror Crack’d with its ingenious reconstructions from several vantage points, and that’s the gold standard for how visually to stage a detective story that truly engages an audience.

Lizzie Powell’s light design does so much conspicuous heavy lifting, you begin to wonder if she’s a suspect. Beth Duke’s sound design – all ecclesiastical echoes in exactly the right places – adds a richness to the proceedings that would be expected of the Morse brand. And don’t say that director Anthony Banks, fresh from his Edinburgh Fringe triumph with Footballers Wives the Musical, doesn’t know how to keep everything moving. But also how to find a moment within the script. The scene where detectives and suspects attend a church service for the victim is, dare we say, arrestingly staged.

There are real standouts in the supporting cast. Charlotte Randle gives a suitably larger-than-life thespian as Verity, dispensing humour and suspicions in equal measure. She pitches exactly where House of Ghosts should be. Spin Glancy gives actor Justin the correct level of jitteriness and his tortured Danish prince the perfect analogue.

But it’s Tachia Newall that gives Morse’s sidekick Lewis such roundedness that whether he is delivering a punchline or providing enthusiastic procedural zeal, he completely owns the role.

A harder ask is given to Tom Chambers. In the titular role, he is given a Herculean task to follow John Thaw. Scenes with a lightness of touch, Chambers delivers. But on any occasion where he needs to deliver the heft of Morse, his melancholic sense of time wasted, or his overburdened sense of regrets, or Morse’s irritation at life, the actor simply isn’t weathered enough to be fully credible. Too often the Oxford sleuth looks constipated rather than truly pained by his own existential challenges. Chambers is too sprightly and engaging a performer to convey the slings and arrows this policeman has endured.

Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts certainly delivers a thorny mystery and a storyline that will have you feverishly speculating about the denouement – and with a production that offers artistry, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” The Recs has suspicions that you’ll find it very good indeed.

The Recs reviewed Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts at the Grand Opera House, York