Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators (TV Series) The Play's the Thing (2019) User Reviews

Lots of fun.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 17 April 2019]

I did very much enjoy this second episode, so much better then the previous episode with the dog. It was a clever mystery, with some terrific production values and costumes.

Ray Fearon of course looks wonderful, and his character has a profound effect on Lu, but it's Sophie Stone, who played Katie that I enjoyed watching most of all.

It's not perhaps the greatest mystery, but the character play is huge fun. 8/10

The Play's the Thing

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 2 March 2019]

Adrian Messenger pops in to see Shakespeare & Hathaway and he has a list. He wants Lu and Frank to get evidence if his wife is having an affair.

Adrian story lines role playing scenarios which are enacted at the weekends. His wife Maggie plays the Queen and she has fallen for the Duke, real life war hero Major Tony Suffolk.

Frank, Lu and Sebastian attend the activity disguised as various role players. Only to find out that Maggie does shoot the Duke with an arrow and another woman also gets injured.

A rather mixed bag, I am not sure the story achieved its aims. Maggie is shallow and is hard to sympathise with. The mystery then deepens to activities in Afghanistan as Major Suffolk's identity comes into scrutiny. The ending was rather messy.

A fun episode

[wjspears · 8/10 · 25 January 2021]

No one should watch Shakespeare and Hathaway for well crafted mysteries.

For instance, in this episode, one character plans on shooting herself with an arrow. But aside from the logistics of that act, it is never explained how she intended to rejoin the others, with an arrow lodged in her thigh, and expect no one to notice.

The show is enjoyable for the three main characters their interactions with each other, and the wacky clients and suspects they encounter each week.

Some episodes are better than others. This episode was great in part because of Ray Fearon as the smarmy hunk who oozes suspicion. And Emma Fryer as the cheating femme fatale, who manages to be both pathetic and sympathetic in the same episode.