Eventually everything gets a bit, well, boring – which should be impossible with such a strong plot. The less said about the soap style gesticulating the better. Every single actor either speaks their lines completely flat and rushed, or constantly acts at level 10, meaning that any tension a scene might contain has nowhere to go.

Instead everything feels decidedly amateurish. If only the acting that gets them there was anything like as good. Which all sounds fantastic, and the ending twist is genuinely surprising, eliciting gasps from the audience. The race is on to find Mick before a new snuff film gets streamed… The police get involved, the pressure ramps up, and Tom’s wife Kellie (Gaynor Faye, most recently seen in The Syndicate) ends up being kidnapped. The 17 year old (who looks at least 25) downloads some software to break the heavily encripted password, because that is something readily available on the Apple Store, and they end up watching a live stream snuff film from a man called Mick (Mylo McDonald with a terrible Irish accent, although at least that is explained by the end).

Practically bankrupt entrepreneur Tom Bryce (Adam Woodyatt, of Eastenders fame) finds a memory stick on the train home, and asks his son Max (Luke Ward-Wilkinson) to help him open it. Looking Good Dead is a classic crime thriller boiled down from what it must be imagined is a very complex and well explained novel to a two hour truncation where the audience needs to suspend more than just the usual amount of disbelief. You will be hammered by the end of Act 1.

Once the show starts, this will enable you to play a wonderfully fun drinking game.Ĭrime novel cliché such as the first victim being a sex worker? Drink.Īctors march on or off stage in a line? Drink twice. Written by: Shaun McKenna, adapted from the novel by Peter Jamesīefore you take your seat at Leeds Grand Theatre to watch Looking Good Dead, based on the novel by Peter James, make sure to visit the bar and get yourself a few beverages.

Peter james looking good dead review