Magnumb, Private Eye by Richard A Tallent - Play, Comedy -  He's no TV star. He just gets the bad guys to obey the laws he can't keep himself.  Terrance Magnumb isn't that smart, but he has heart. Join him as he tackles illegal labor trafficking in Honolulu's seedy, lurid underbelly. 43 pages - pdf format

New writer interested in feedback on this work, please be nice

I would love to hear from anyone who has read the complete play,thanks!

Hi Richard. The number of views that you see here is the number of times this thread has been opened. It does not mean anyone has read your play, although some people certainly could've. I would suggest looking for a review exchange here https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-goose/  

Hi Richard, and welcome to SS.

I didn't read it all but I read quite a few pages and scanned through quite a few more.

I'm not (these days) well versed in formatting for stage plays but I've included this link FYI.
https://studylib.net/doc/8096043/the-standard-stage-play-format.

The opening of your Play begins with Magnumb (funny name btw) in voice over relaying a lot of information to an audience. If on stage I would presume this dialogue would be spoken out loud. Imho, you need to edit the opening. It's too much info dump in one go.

I think your talent (is that your real name btw?) with the gift of the gab is obvious, but I also think a lot of your really funny lines are getting a little lost in asides, and descriptive elements. As such they won't even be conveyed to an audience in this format, but only to the reader.

Here's an example of your current formatting not doing you any favours:

The curtain opens, and they are back at the restaurant again.
I'm pretty sure based on the info in that link I posted above, your location should be stated in a heading, not [i]they're back in the restaurant again'.

This appears to be a split set as you describe it, as if we're supposed to see two locations on stage concurrently, with lights up, lights down - perhaps with V.O. from Magnumb going in and out. It's confusing however, as written.

[iiMagnumb ,Risk and now their buddy CC. He gets his name because he always has a bottle of Canadian Club in one hand and a pistol in the other. This makes it difficult as he’s a full time taxi driver.[/i]

Witty banter like this, (I found it amusing) but unless another character speaks it in dialogue it's completely lost like I said.

Magnumb VO: Darn that Hank! Sleazeball! How does this town think he’s a fine citizen
and charitable but remain blind to his smarmy schemes? He’s also conned his victims out of his
sick schemes to the tune of 2,000,000 bucks...

Is this (above), like I queried, said out loud?

You have talent for sure. The characters are colourful, and a lot of the dialogue and exchanges are smart and very funny but from what I see it needs a cleanup so we can 'see' exactly where we are in each location and setting and envisage on stage.

Using the medium of Stage Play, unless you revamp this so we can hear the comedic nuggets within are just being lost.

The more I read the more I thought: Radio Play, maybe. Or Neo-noir screenplay, or Novel.
I hope this helps.

Get involved with people on the forum here.
As Pia suggested you can post for an exchange read, or read other SS regular's work and they'll likely reciprocate.

I'm willing to review a comedy of anyone if you will review my comedy.  Any takers?

Post your request for a Script Exchange (read) here:
https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-goose/