SO MUCH BLOOD

Last year, Brett introduced us to Charles Paris, that aging, scrounging Lothario of stage and tube (Cast, in Order of Disappearance). It's a pleasure to have him back, and especially to have him at the Edinburgh Festival, where he's semi-ignominiously doing his one-man show--the life and poems of Thomas Hood--as the lunchtime attraction of the Derby University Drama Society (inevitably, DUDS). Charles watches preparations for the major DUDS offering, Mary, Queen of Sots (sic), and the murder-of-Rizzio rehearsal achieves total realism; an actor picks up a real dagger instead of a plastic prop. The propgirl's carelessness? Charles thinks not, and takes time off from work and playmate (a nubile, ambitious actress) to detect. The culprit--if not the motive--is thoroughly guessable, but, before the suspects thin out (one's a suicide), there's grand Edinburgh sightseeing, affectionate satire of avant-garde theatrics, and a crash course in Thomas Hood. A bonnie book indeed.