REVIEW: Theatre Calgary’s Dial M For Murder queers the classic with style and suspense

iPhoto caption: Shekhar Paleja, Emily Dallas, and Tyrell Crews in 'Dial M For Murder'. Set design by Anton deGroot. Photo by Trudie Lee.

Reviews

/By Eve Beauchamp / Oct 15, 2025

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From the get-go, Dial M For Murder gives us, well, everything: a setting (1950s London), a victim (the affluent Margot Wendice), a culprit (her parasitic husband Tony Wendice), a motive (his discovery of Margot’s taboo affair), and a method (sponsoring her murder). 

Before you start crying “spoiler,” let me say: this isn’t your mother’s whodunit. Namely, it’s not quite a murder mystery. A partnership between Theatre Calgary and Vancouver’s Arts Club (where it will be running next February), Dial M For Murder spares no time in telling us the “who” and the “why,” as Mr. Wendice’s intentions are arrogantly lucid from the start. The play’s true enigma manifests in whether or not he’ll actually be able to pull it off. 

What ensues is plotty and wordy, but so very fun. Running 2 hours and 15 minutes (including an intermission between acts), the production is a veritable blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, with a gripping script and electric performances. 

With respect to script, Jeffrey Hatcher’s 2022 reimagining of Frederick Knott’s 1952 play is a knockout not only in dramaturgical acumen, but in political sharpness, too. The cloaked romance that sparks the homicidal scheme at the core of play is no longer between Margot (Emily Dallas) and a Mark, but rather a Maxine (Olivia Hutt). Yes, exactly — the original heterosexual coupling becomes refreshingly queer. 

Stakes, and consequently audience investments, are dizzying. What was once the product of tired, heteronormative marital dissatisfaction, becomes a covert operation born of social necessity. It’s danger, it’s excitement, and it’s just the kind of tension required to elevate a watchable plot to a memorable one. 

As a queer person, I’m often skeptical of tokenized swapouts that amount to little more than optics. Here, however, director Jillian Keiley’s handling of the text is judicious and far from socially tepid. The relationship between Margot and Maxine is played sensitively and unabashedly, and at no point falls victim to comedic undermining. Keiley refuses to shy away from depictions of onstage intimacy and, thanks to Anastasia St. Amand’s intimacy direction, molds a gravitational dynamic that is touching and sympathetic. 

This production’s innovation goes even further than revisionist content; Anton deGroot’s set is a carefully vexing (read: queered) rendition of a 1950s apartment, featuring a turntable floor and an upstage wall that revolve beneath and around the actors throughout the performance. 

The shifting is unsettlingly subtle. So much so that, upon a first watch of the production’s invited dress rehearsal, it had me questioning whether it was turning at all. Even during a second viewing, I strived — and often failed — to detect the precise moments the set slipped from stasis into motion. What might read as gimmicky at first glance, I’d call inspired; deGroot’s sophisticated engineering both honours the play’s cinematic roots  and evokes a thick air of unease. As we watch the walls and floor slide, we witness the two central female characters negotiate a world that is literally and perpetually working against them.

I realize I’m making this sound rather grim and serious — which it really isn’t. When not unfolding its zig-zagging plot, Dial M For Murder delivers pinpoint pokes and jabs (homicidal and humorous alike) that had the Thursday-night house I sat in for my second viewing laughing just as much as they gasped. 

Stylized transitions amp up the melodrama characteristic of the thriller genre: with sound designer and composer Anton Lipovetsky’s bouncy musical stings and lighting designer Itai Erdal’s crisp spotlight work, each scene change is a fun suspension from a packed plot. 

The airtight cast adds necessary punch to this text-dense show. Tyrell Crews impresses as the slippery Tony Wendice, who cons the righteous Inspector Hubbard played by an unwavering Shekhar Paleja. Stafford Perry is also particularly snappy in the small-but-mighty role of commissioned murderer Lesgate. Occupying the quintessential victim role, Dallas gracefully navigates Margot’s narrative weight even when the character, as written, dissolves into dated hysterics. Most notable is Hutt, who stuns in her portrayal of murder mystery writer Maxine. Lush with measured wit and transatlantic charm, Hutt’s performance brings gravitas and agency to a patriarchal mid-twentieth-century London. 

Staked at the crossroads of theatrical thrills and social incisiveness, Dial M For Murder is the kind of programming I love to see on larger Canadian stages — good theatre, drenched in suspense and sustained by a contemporary ethos.

Dial M For Murder runs at Theatre Calgary until October 26. More information is available here.

Eve Beauchamp wrote this review as part of Page Turn, a professional development network for emerging arts writers, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts and administered by Neworld Theatre.

Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

WRITTEN BY

Eve Beauchamp

Eve Beauchamp (they/them) is an award-winning Calgary-based theatre artist, playwright, and graduate of the BFA in Acting at the University of Ottawa. They are the co-artistic director of Levity Theatre Company and primarily create work that explores queerness, capitalism, and neurodivergence through humour, poetry, and storytelling. Currently, you can find them pursuing their Master of Fine Arts in Drama at the University of Calgary.

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