Stealing the (crime) scene – Derek Webb

For this week’s Crime Cymru blog we go to the multi-talented Derek Webb for an update on his latest works, which sound fascinating.

There’s no getting away…

South and North, Derek Webb is stealing the (crime) scene

Happily, as this blog goes to press, I have two shows opening. In Pembrokeshire it’s the première of my latest murder mystery comedy: Agatha Crusty and the Medieval Murders. It’s the latest in the enormously popular Agatha Crusty series. The first one – ‘Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders’ – premiered in 2013 and has since gone on to be performed well over 600 times around the world, including Australia and the US.

Since then there has been five other comedies featuring crime writer and amateur sleuth Agatha Crusty. The latest one has the eponymous detective attending a genealogy course – finding out more about her family tree is something that has always fascinated her. The course is being held in one of the best preserved medieval houses in the country called Bramwell Towers, built on the site of a Franciscan Priory that has long since gone.

Sadly, wherever Agatha goes, murderous deeds seem soon to follow. She has scarcely been there a few hours when one of the people running the course dies in suspicious circumstances. And then one by one others follow. It’s certainly time to call in the police and get a thorough investigation underway. But the arrival of a certain Detective Inspector Twigg doesn’t exactly fill the occupants of Bramwell Towers with optimism and, yet again, it falls on Miss Crusty to solve the case amid bodies piling up as fast as the laughs.

But, while packed full of wit and very funny scenes, this is also a genuine murder mystery with an ingenious plot which will tax the little grey cells of the audience at the same time! Their popularity has promoted me to begin producing the series in book form too.

Agatha Crusty and the Medieval Murders is on from April 6 – 9 at the Boulevard Theatre, Milford Haven.

Meanwhile in North Wales…

On exactly the same days as Agatha is in South Wales, another of my characters – Roy Brown – is in Anglesey. Ucheldre Rep Company are performing ‘Roy Brown: Reclaiming Stonehenge’ at the Canolfan Ucheldre Centre in Holyhead. Another comedy, this concerns the exploits of Roy Brown who decides that if Greece wants the Elgin Marbles back it’s only fair that Wales should have the Stonehenge bluestones back! After all, it’s a crime that they’re in Wiltshire and not on the Preselis!