AGATHA STRIKES AGAIN
This is Extreme Agatha Christie, her most preposterous (and bestselling) plot and one of the most murderously morbid (NB the final moments of the staging are not for the very young, squeamish or easily triggered. Noose alert). On the other hand director Lucy Bailey, whose Witness For The Prosecution still runs at County Hall after 8 years, plunges into it with glee , and takes every advantage of its period 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 genre. And it is certainly better than the Mousetrap.
For we have here a Devon island, cut off by weather, to which a mysterious A.N.Owen has invited a disparate group of Christie characters – a judge, a doctor, a General, a policeman, an army Captain, a Colonial, a religiously judgmental old lady, and hired a slinky secretary in a backless gown and a housekeeper and maid. But Owen never turns up. Instead, after dinner a record is played on the brass-horned gramophone, solemnly accusing each of them of a past murder, or causing a death. They’re all affronted by this unusual houseparty incivility, especially the upper-middle ones (as they harrumphed indignantly, I suddenly wondered whether JB Priestley pinched the idea for An Inspector Calls six years later). They’re all going to be wiped out, we learn, as the “ten little soldier boys” ornament on the table counts down, one by one being smashed.
So what we get in the first half is some magnificent best-of British character acting, notably from Katy Stephens as the cross crone, an increasingly dishevelled Lucy Tregear as the housekeeper and above all Jeffery Kissoon as the General: he arrestingly becomes a sort of chorus as the accusation rouses his guilt and dementia before he is wiped out. All the deaths are appropriate to the children’s rhyme (early Agatha loved doing that, as in Sing a Song of Sixpence). So naturally the survivors gradually accept their histories and explain why it wasn’t their fault, aided by some nice moody shadowplay behind the gauze curtain. And there are treasurably shocking period lines about sexual morality from the old lady and, from the colonial chap, the theory that killing “natives” is ok because they dont mind it the way we do. Oh, and a harrumph about That Man Hitler and how he may invade Poland.
Bodies fall one by one, spookily rising again to stare at us and exit. The second half, with ever fewer cast, has to deploy more angst and mutual suspicion, is more psychologically intense and hence flawed (Christie is no Ibsen). But there is some magnificent overacting to enjoy, the bearskin incident is splendid, and when they all go doolally after a particular shock, they do it in full 1930s disco with a red lightwash.
So there you are. Northampton’s fine Royal and Derngate was cheated of its producing premiere by RAAC, all sympathies. But the show is touring the land determinedly snf is an elegant tribute to its period, done with gusto (and a bit too much nasty relish in the last two minutes). I rather enjoyed it. My more intellectual non-Christie companion didn’t, very much. But I tried to cheer her up by claiming it was an artfully postmodern and painfully topical commentary on 1930s morality and Auden’s “low dishonest decade”.
Not sure that worked. But you know what you’re getting with our Agatha, it’s a cracking good cast, both veterans and debutants, and such touring shows are , next to Weat End, blissfully affordable.
https://andthentherewerenoneplay.com For tour dates nationwide: Sheffield next.
Richmond till 4th, then almost everywhere till 13th April 2024
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