Thoughts turn not to murder but to suicide during this misbegotten musical, which attempts to combine the murder mystery and salsa sounds and dance in a recipe that comes straight out of the Lucrezia Borgia cookbook. It is pure poison, although the last 10 minutes, when the salsa sauce gets hotter, do offer a little emergency resuscitation for those of us who had considered ordering Kool-Aid and cyanide at the interval.
Having dispensed with the services of at least two directors on its limp into town, this story of a rich, dysfunctional Puerto Rican family, the Buckinghams, who gather for the reading of the will of the clan's deceased patriarch, is now overseen by what are described as artistic advisers. The best you can say is that they make rather a good job of the scene changes where the dancers get to strut their stuff. It is the bits in between that drag the enterprise down.
Cinda Fox's book and lyrics are lamentable, with a plot that is silly stupid rather than silly fun and characters that make the Reverend Green and Miss Scarlet from my Cluedo set seem as rounded and fascinating as anything out of Dickens. They all appear to have had a personality bypass, with the exception of Jonathan D Ellis's delightfully camp gay stereotype, Miguel, and Nichola McAuliffe's delightfully camp matriarchal stereotype, Edwina. McAuliffe belts out her numbers with a passion and a volume that make it seem as if the great Piaf was delivering all her songs while under sedation.
During the up-tempo numbers the show shows signs of life, but it keeps jerking to a halt for soppy angst-ridden love numbers that are not so much soulful as sinful in their ineptitude. Judging by the number of people called Fox involved in this evening, this is something of a vanity project. Do the Foxes have no friends? Or are they just too sheepish to tell them that there are ways to rid yourself of excess cash that don't involve inflicting so much pain on other people.
· Until January 29. Box office: 0870 164 8787.
