The Ladykillers

Adapted from the iconic 1955 Ealing comedy film, Graham Linehan’s stage adaptation of The Ladykillers is a macabre, fast-paced black comedy and farce. It retains the dark humor of the original film but ramps up the physical comedy, slapstick, and eccentricities of the characters.

The story is set in 1950s London. Mrs. Wilberforce is a sweet, eccentric, and deeply moral elderly widow who lives alone in a wonderfully lopsided, rickety house near King’s Cross station with her ailing parrot, General Gordon. She is well-known to the local police for constantly reporting imagined neighborhood crises, such as suspected Nazi spies or alien invasions.

Her quiet life is upended when the charming but unhinged "Professor" Marcus rents her spare upstairs room. He claims to be the conductor of a string quintet and asks if his group can use the room to rehearse. In reality, Marcus is a criminal mastermind, and his "musicians" are a ragtag gang of misfits plotting a massive security van heist at the nearby train station.

The heist itself goes off perfectly, and Marcus even manages to use the completely unsuspecting Mrs. Wilberforce as an innocent mule to transport the stolen cash past the police.

However, things rapidly unravel back at the house. While the gang prepares to split the money and leave, the dim-witted One-Round accidentally reveals the truth to Mrs. Wilberforce by letting the cat out of the bag about the robbery. Driven by her unshakeable sense of morality, Mrs. Wilberforce insists that they must hand the money back and give themselves up to the police.

Realising the old lady won't back down, Professor Marcus concludes there is only one option, Mrs. Wilberforce has to be eliminated ...