June 30, 2008
A group of strangers are invited to a party on an island off the coast of Devon. The mysterious host is missing – nowhere to be found on the island. And one by one the group die. There are ten, then nine, then eight, and so on until – well you can read the play’s title. ‘You’ve ruined the play!’ I hear you call. Not at all. I haven’t told you who dunnit.
A play adapted by Christie herself from her popular novel, this staging uses an ending closer to that of the novel than her adaptation for theatre (altered, suggests the director, to offer the audience in the midst of war a more positive ending). This is a real, solid, difficult, tale-twising who dunnit. My husband spends most TV detective series guessing (annoying often correctly) the ending. Throughout this play he guessed wrong. To be fair, so did most of the rest of the audience. At every curtain down, the packed theatre buzzed with guesses and theories.
Of course, the cracking good story has to take the credit for that. Christie was rightly pleased with her ‘unplottable’ tale which aimed to baffle but have a perfectly reasonable explanation. However, the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, with their true-to-period production must take credit for keeping the suspense alive. The simple setting worked better than I thought it would, with a light, airy room becoming a claustrophobic prison, its walls cast with shadows.
Understudies had been called upon to play 2 parts – something I wouldn’t have noticed, but for the notice in the foyer and the photos in the programme! It’s difficult to pull out a star from a cast as solid as this. If any, Gerald Harper as Sir Lawrence Wargrave perhaps sticks in my mind.
My one reservation was around the use, or over-use, of comedy. Now, I’m all for a Christie tale being light as it is mysterious and deadly, but pulling laughs from the audience once or twice seemed oddly out of place.
If I had more space, I might tell you about the well placed use of music (setting the period – check; spooky and mysterious – check; suddenly loud to make you jump – check!). Or I might mention the gorgeous tableaux set from from time to time (Vera Claythorne standing in the doorway dressed for dinner as the other guests return to the room). But time and word limits forbid! What’s that? You want to know who dunnit? Sorry, but that’s one you’ll have to work out (or see) for yourselves!
A play adapted by Christie herself from her popular novel, this staging uses an ending closer to that of the novel than her adaptation for theatre (altered, suggests the director, to offer the audience in the midst of war a more positive ending). This is a real, solid, difficult, tale-twising who dunnit. My husband spends most TV detective series guessing (annoying often correctly) the ending. Throughout this play he guessed wrong. To be fair, so did most of the rest of the audience. At every curtain down, the packed theatre buzzed with guesses and theories.
Of course, the cracking good story has to take the credit for that. Christie was rightly pleased with her ‘unplottable’ tale which aimed to baffle but have a perfectly reasonable explanation. However, the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, with their true-to-period production must take credit for keeping the suspense alive. The simple setting worked better than I thought it would, with a light, airy room becoming a claustrophobic prison, its walls cast with shadows.
Understudies had been called upon to play 2 parts – something I wouldn’t have noticed, but for the notice in the foyer and the photos in the programme! It’s difficult to pull out a star from a cast as solid as this. If any, Gerald Harper as Sir Lawrence Wargrave perhaps sticks in my mind.
My one reservation was around the use, or over-use, of comedy. Now, I’m all for a Christie tale being light as it is mysterious and deadly, but pulling laughs from the audience once or twice seemed oddly out of place.
If I had more space, I might tell you about the well placed use of music (setting the period – check; spooky and mysterious – check; suddenly loud to make you jump – check!). Or I might mention the gorgeous tableaux set from from time to time (Vera Claythorne standing in the doorway dressed for dinner as the other guests return to the room). But time and word limits forbid! What’s that? You want to know who dunnit? Sorry, but that’s one you’ll have to work out (or see) for yourselves!