I’m not an Agatha Christie fan
There will probably always be as many different reactions to a stage performance as there are members of the audience.
That accepted, I am astonished at your reviewer’s assessment of this production which I thought frankly awful (‘Exciting adaptation of a classic Christie thriller’, County Times january 24).
The set consisted of an interior with walls apparently of white painted wooden boarding, more reminiscent of a beach house or cricket pavilion than an upper class home, with a collection of furniture best described as eclectic.
The cast, who perhaps were more used to a TV studio than a live theatre, varied considerably in the ability to project their voices, ranging from stentorian clarity (the inspector) to the wispy thread of Patrick, via the murmurs of Miss Marple, and the central European ‘mummerset’ of the foot-stamping Mitzi (the latter, in this dated tale, provided the comic relief and was, perhaps therefore predictably, foreign, female and a servant).
At the crisis of the play where Miss Marple denounces Letitia she appeared to have lost her lines completely and indeed the accused seemed to be feeding her accuser cues.
At the point where she left the stage some were of the opinion she had gone to consult the script. Perhaps this is why she got a laugh ‘while clumsily trying to re-enact the gunman’s entrance’?
Admitted, I’m not an Agatha Christie fan. I think the material is so weak that it needs all the support it can get from the cast and the production to achieve any sort of credibility. It did not get that support here.
GEOFF LUNN
Richmond Road, Horsham
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Friday 24 May 2013
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