Coming to Cardiff as part of its 2026 tour, with director Oscar Toeman at the helm, Double Indemnity has hit the stage of the New Theatre, kitted out in minimalist fashion to evoke the somewhat grimy atmospheres of crisis-hit California at a time when Hollywood was still Hollywoodland (is this a glimpse of the famous sign we can spot at the top of the stage?) The somewhat basic stage trappings are a clever idea, allowing for quick scene changes which suit the many location of the story, and are complemented by lush costuming, nailing the period outfits and thinking cleverly in terms of light and colour.
Advertised as a thriller, this stage adaptation of the 1944 Billy Wilder film of the same name is perhaps better described as a classic noir with a sense of humour. Readers of the Nero Wolfe murder mysteries will recognise a familiar tone and vibe and feel at home within it from the very first handful of lines. The less trope-savvy, or those with more strongly contemporary sensitivities, may take a little longer to adapt. Once you settle into the story, however, it is a very entertaining ride; the pacing is tight, with very little indulgence for dead spaces, and the way in which the various reveals are delivered is well spaced out into a crescendo. If you don’t know the story already, there is a fair chance some developments, final twist included, will take you genuinely by surprise. These are all praiseworthy qualities in a show of this kind, which, without the ability to create and sustain tension, would inevitably fail.
Of course, playing a film noir vibe completely straight in 2026 would be a very hard feat to land. The play knows it and does not try; one of its greatest strengths is precisely that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The very moment insurance-salesman-turned-conspirator Walter Huff (Ciarán Owens) hits the stage as the lights go up, the first time he goes is break the fourth wall in the cheekiest possible way, and a fine thread of humour is woven throughout the performance, both drawing from the letter of the text and leaning on the delivery of the performance. Perhaps more than anything else, this works; more than once the tension is broken by genuine chuckles from the audience. It also helps that the cast’s performance are all-around solid, with particular highlights courtesy of dogged old-school insurer and chief plot-mover Keyes (Martin Marquez) and of Sophia Roberts, delivering a fine balance of earnest and matter-of-fact as young Lola.
The greatest weight, naturally, rests on the shoulders of the true star of the play, Mischa Barton as Phyllis. This is the character which might make or break this story: femme fatale, cold-hearted plotter, and mastermind all in one, it is a character so steeped in classic detective story tropes that it would be an easy mistake to make it slip into caricature, and so layered that it requires some fine-tuning to fully deliver it. Barton acquits herself well with it, and delivers a solid performance which does justice to the many nuances of the script. If you feel a little irritated at how tropey the character’s first appearance feels, that is by design; as the layers are peeled off, all starts feeling more natural, less contrived, and ultimately more gripping.
The job of a work like this is primarily to entertain, and it takes some craft to do so; a craft this production does not lack. It makes for an engaging night at the theatre, with laughs in all the right places and a sprinkling of empathy for characters which still manage to feel human in a story that is clearly bigger than them.
Until May 9
https://trafalgartickets.com/new-theatre-cardiff/en-GB
