AGATHA STRIKES AGAIN
This is Extreme Agatha Christie, her most preposterous (and bestselling) plot and probably the most murderously morbid (NB the ultimate moments of the staging are usually not for the very younger, squeamish or simply triggered. Noose alert). On the opposite hand director Lucy Bailey, whose Witness For The Prosecution nonetheless runs at County Hall after 8 years, plunges into it with glee , and takes each benefit of its interval absurdities. Likewise Mike Britton’s staging – gauze curtains, a sloping shore, a storm, a collapsed chandelier and an alarming bearskin – leaves nothing to be desired for aficionadi of the style. And it’s actually higher than the Mousetrap.
For we’ve got right here a Devon island, minimize off by climate, to which a mysterious A.N.Owen has invited a disparate group of Christie characters – a decide, a health care provider, a General, a policeman, a military Captain, a Colonial, a religiously judgmental outdated woman, and employed a slinky secretary in a backless robe and a housekeeper and maid. But Owen by no means turns up. Instead, after dinner a document is performed on the brass-horned gramophone, solemnly accusing every of them of a previous homicide, or inflicting a loss of life. They’re all affronted by this uncommon houseparty incivility, particularly the upper-middle ones (as they harrumphed indignantly, I all of the sudden questioned whether or not JB Priestley pinched the thought for An Inspector Calls six years later). They’re all going to be worn out, we be taught, because the “ten little soldier boys” decoration on the desk counts down, one after the other being smashed.
So what we get within the first half is a few magnificent best-of British character appearing, notably from Katy Stephens because the cross crone, an more and more dishevelled Lucy Tregear because the housekeeper and above all Jeffery Kissoon because the General: he arrestingly turns into a kind of refrain because the accusation rouses his guilt and dementia earlier than he’s worn out. All the deaths are applicable to the youngsters’s rhyme (early Agatha cherished doing that, as in Sing a Song of Sixpence). So naturally the survivors regularly settle for their histories and clarify why it wasn’t their fault, aided by some good moody shadowplay behind the gauze curtain. And there are treasurably stunning interval strains about sexual morality from the outdated woman and, from the colonial chap, the speculation that killing “natives” is okay as a result of they dont thoughts it the way in which we do. Oh, and a harrumph about That Man Hitler and the way he might invade Poland.
Bodies fall one after the other, spookily rising once more to stare at us and exit. The second half, with ever fewer forged, has to deploy extra angst and mutual suspicion, is extra psychologically intense and therefore flawed (Christie isn’t any Ibsen). But there’s some magnificent overacting to take pleasure in, the bearskin incident is splendid, and after they all go doolally after a specific shock, they do it in full Thirties disco with a purple lightwash.
So there you might be. Northampton’s superb Royal and Derngate was cheated of its producing premiere by RAAC, all sympathies. But the present is touring the land determinedly snf is a chic tribute to its interval, executed with gusto (and a bit an excessive amount of nasty relish within the final two minutes). I somewhat loved it. My extra mental non-Christie companion didn’t, very a lot. But I attempted to cheer her up by claiming it was an artfully postmodern and painfully topical commentary on Thirties morality and Auden’s “low dishonest decade”.
Not positive that labored. But you realize what you’re getting with our Agatha, it’s a cracking good forged, each veterans and debutants, and such touring exhibits are , subsequent to Weat End, blissfully reasonably priced.
https://andthentherewerenoneplay.com For tour dates nationwide: Sheffield subsequent.
Richmond until 4th, then nearly all over the place until thirteenth April 2024
