“I KILLED THE COUNT”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1940, Page 2

“I KILLED THE COUNT”

TONIGHT AT REGENT THEATRE. J. C. Williamson's all-star dramatic company will make its first, appearance in New Zealand in Alec Copper,s now famous mystery play, "I Killed the Count,” at the Regent Theatre tonight. This is the first comedy thriller since “Ten Minute Alibi" and it is universally claimed to be superior. “I Killed the Count" will be presented for this one night only. The management wish it known that all members of his Majesty’s fighting forces on land, sea. or air will, if in uniform, be admitted for half-price. “There is nothing inherently funny in murder,” says a London critic. “Nevertheless, ’I Killed the Count’ fairly bubbles with laughter. It is this way. When the corpse is lifted out of the prologue where we find it, Scotland Yard men come along-’to the Count’s flat. They interview the manager of the flats, the liftman, and two women and a man, and also Lord Sorrington, a peer of the realm of unblemished repute. Three of them not only admit they killed the Count, but describe exactly how they did it. It amounts to this: The. Count was killed at 10.30, at 12.30, and at 1.15 a.m. on the same night, but at 2.20 he made a telephone call. And he was killed a fourth time. That makes four murders and only one corpse." A large part of the fun in watching a mystery play lies in the battle of wits between the audience and the detectives.’ The amateur sleuths in front solve the problem many times, but each time they are wrong and the surprising but simple denouement as the final curtain falls leaves them gasping. The box plan is at W. G. Perry’s, and other particulars are advertised.