Though I know the name, I've seen neither the play nor the film adaptation starring Cary Grant. Its an old-fashioned comic murder mystery about drama critic Mortimer Brewster (Niall Machin) and his crazy lunatic family, headed by murderous old biddies Aunt Abby (Sophie Phillips) and Aunt Martha (Vicki Lyden).

The start is a little shaky as the actors and audience get to grips with the accents; Lyden and Phillips also had the added pressure of having to sound elderly as well. Once the actors get into their stride though, they're a lot clearer. Some have excellent enunciation; Tara Caple for example, playing Elaine- Mortimer's fiancee. Her breathy old-style Hollywood accent worked brilliantly for the role. The accents are consistent and whether accurate or not, at least they are clearly from the same state.

I'm not normally a fan of this type of play; I hated Deathtrap. I also committed the sin of hating a Hitchcock classic; Dial M For Murder (not a comedy but the similar sort of style). However it has the universal appeal of old people, who are inherently funny. I did cringe at the jokes about the theatre and being a critic- why does every main character in a play have to be a writer and constantly talk about writing?- but that's only a little creak in what is actually a very funny play. Machin's cartoonish facial expressions are funnier than some of the lines and Tiago Luzio makes delusional brother Teddy, who believes himself to be Roosevelt, hilarious and bombastic but also endearing.

The play is well-paced, with each act gaining momentum. It's the introduction of Elliot Huxtable as Jonathan Brewster, the black sheep of the family, that really gets the gears moving. His brand of lunacy is narcissistic sadism; botched plastic surgery has unfortunately made him look like Boris Karloff. Huxtable has the Alan Rickman-ish charm nailed, making his character devilishly intriguing. Joel Bates is a great sidekick as Dr Einstein (no, not THAT one), the shoddy plastic surgeon/accomplice.

Director Keiren Barton has a flair for this type of farcical drawing-room comedy, as well as an obvious affection for it. There's nothing worse than a director reviving an old play only to kill it off. It's the affection that he's shown for the material and the enthusiasm that he's conveyed to the cast that make the play a great bit of entertainment.

These performances were given as part of a symposium by the university's European Theatre Research Network  on ‘Music and The Dramatic Text’. Catalan writer Joan Brossa’s cycle of sketches, Accions Musicals, received their first English translation and their British premiere; interspersed with Brossa’s sketches were sketches by the directors, Fetin Abu Sardaneh and Ellen Lock Ireland.

Dr Montserrat Roser i Puig, one of the speakers at the event, had it spot on when she described Brossa’s work as ‘mildly innocuous’. Though those are not exactly encouraging words for a director, Sardaneh and Lock Ireland do not do the tempting thing of trying to either apologise for the work or send it up. They stage the very short sketches-more accurately described as jokes or small observations- faithfully, relying on the comic talents of their actors. Marie Netsborn, as a hiccupping pianist, is particularly charming in her clownishness. The linking music for the sketches, a typical silent movie comedy score, works nicely in acknowledging the ‘circus’ aspect and avoids them from becoming pretentious Beckett-esque musings.

The directors’ own sketches are more appealing, acting as a dialogue with the original Brossa pieces. Music is more deeply explored here, such as in the first sketch by Lock Ireland where the stage is bare and we are listening to a ‘radio station’, where callers make romantic, ironic and terribly cheesy requests. The banality of their choices and the ‘romantic to the point of creepiness’ shout-outs are perfectly observed, with the callers completely unaware of their ridiculous tediousness. This theme is later reprised in one of Sardaneh’s sketches when a student (Alex Doble) tries the impossible task of getting through to a Student Finance operator. The script is so accurately observed that it was surely transcribed and the surreal touches when the student finally gets through to the thickly-accented operator (Ellen Lock Ireland) are reminiscent of the interrogation in The Birthday Party.

Though not all of the new sketches are music –themed, there is a thematic link of futility and repetition, the ultimate expression of which is the ‘hold’ tone. It’s a relic from the days where muzak was pumped into lifts and shops, supposedly to stimulate shoppers but actually numbing them. This is why I found the use of ‘modern technology’ worked really well in making their work distinct from Brossa’s.

Arguably the new sketches fit better with the symposium’s theme of the relationship between music and text. The rhythms of ‘modern technology’ are more deeply engrained in the new sketches than classical music is to the Brossa works. Had the directors had a better budget to replicate the classical music world, that would have brought out Brossa’s puncturing of the upper classes , but I think they give him a fair trial and they’re respectful enough not to present their sketches as improvements- even if the audience might agree.