Verdict The Regent theatre, Hanley

WE LIKE a good murder round our house. CSI stands for Cops, Specially Interesting. We loved loathsome Luther; even an old New Tricks or a lacklustre Lewis is good for killing time.

And nothing beats Agatha Christie, of course; a Marple or a Poirot is dead interesting.

So I was delighted to don my Mac and hat, light my pipe, and set off for the scene of the crime at The Regent to investigate the play Verdict.

Here I'll let you into a little secret.

Hours of detective work by my wife and I (on our sofa) have revealed that the most famous actor is always the one who did it.

The TV companies have apparently realised that we know this, so they try to confuse the issue by making sure there are plenty of famous actors around as red herrings.

So here, the Agatha Christie Theatre Company includes a host of faces you'll sort of recognise.

There's Susan Penhaligon, pictured right (of Doctors and Emmerdale if you're not old enough to remember with affection the first Bouquet of Barbed Wire), Robert Duncan (Gus Hedges from Drop the Dead Donkey), Peter Byrne (late of Dixon of Dock Green) and former pop star Mark Wynter (he sang Venus In Blue Jeans).

In fact, the star murderer rule turns out to be redundant in Verdict, since there is only one murder and it takes place right in front of us on stage.

There is an obligatory thick policeman (well handled by Andrew Malkin), but alas, no Marple or Poirot to put him right.

There is even a comedy servant (Elizabeth Power gets a few good laughs), who turns out to be rather more sinister than that.

A committed, professional and experienced team of actors give their all to a play which must inevitably seem rather dated (it was written in 1958, when everyone smoked– do the actors get danger money?)

There's a solid, three-dimensional set from Simon Scullion and some very nice period frocks.

After two hours of talk though, I was ready to murder a cup of tea – and that's no mystery.

Agatha Christie's Verdict runs at The Regent theatre, Hanley until Saturday. For tickets call 0844 8717649.

Chris Ramsden