The Oxford detective was a mainstay of British TV for more than a decade, and now 25 years on Morse has returned in a new story written specially for stage.
John Thaw made the titular policeman of Colin Dexter’s novels a 90s icon, but here the central role is taken by Tom Chambers.
The story was created for the theatre by Alma Cullen, who worked with Dexter on scripts for four episodes of the TV show, and literally brings the detective to the stage when his evening out watching Hamlet is interrupted by the real-life death of Ophelia.
The fictional production involves several of Morse’s old university chums, and the plot twists back and forth through time as the events of their college days echo into the present.
Colin Richmond’s design also emphasises the theatrics, with a patchwork scenery that allows us to switch either side of the proscenium arch and peek through to the ‘real’ backstage, and allows us to seamless travel between the theatre stage, police station, pub, church, and more.
Anthony Banks direction however leans more towards melodrama. Even allowing for the stereotypically highly strung characters of the theatre crowd, Spin Glancy’s frenzied young actor Justin and James Gladdons’ rough and ready Freddy are more surface than depth.
Olivia Onyehara breezes across the stage as the baby-obsessed wife of Robert Mountford’s theatre director Lawrence, seemingly untroubled by his philandering or the likely financial collapse of the tour she is apparently bankrolling. It is almost comic, but Banks doesn’t push it that hard – the only deliberate jokes we get are fairly weak ones foreshadowing mobile phones, computers, and DNA profiling.
Mountford is perhaps the most believable, as a slightly eye-swivelling sadistic theatre director, alongside Charlotte Randle as alcoholic ageing actress Verity, lightly mourning her switch from Ophelia in the group’s college production to Gertrude in the remake. Teresa Banham is fine as Oxford don Ellen, but her emotional restraint feels like it belongs in a different production.
As for Chambers’ Morse, I couldn’t get past him apparently channelling Jeremy Vine, with distant looks and furrowed brows that reeked a bit more of boredom than conviction. Sidekick Lewis (Tachia Newall) is somehow more rounded despite having much less to work with.
There is potential here – the story is just the right amount of convoluted, the design is attractive without being obtrusive, and there some decent performances – but it never quite finds its feet. Several references are made to being a policeman being a waste of Morse’s intellect. There’s nothing wrong with being a cop, just not PC Plod.
- Inspector Morse: House of Ghosts continues at Norwich Theatre Royal until Saturday 22 November 2025, tickets £15-45, then touring nationally including Cambridge Arts Theatre, 10-14 February 2026.
