CHIMNEYS. To 19 October.
Pitlochry
CHIMNEYS
by Agatha Christie
Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 19 October 2006
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat 20, 28 September, 7, 19 October 2pm
Runs 2hr 35min Two intervals
TICKETS: 01796 484626
www.pitlochry.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 August
Drama goes up in smoke.
A memorably nervous moment from schooldays; being lined-up then peeled off in sets for English, Maths or whatever. To which teacher would you be assigned for the coming 11 months?
Easy to imagine something similar as Pitlochry's acting team waited to discover which of them was going to land Agatha's turkey for the season. It', a bird stuffed back in 1931, when it never reached the stage. And that was when playwrights were supposed to write like this.
Christie could at least write prose that propelled readers along.For logical plotting Dorothy L Sayers repeatedly outdid her. But she could make the reader think she'd played a fair game; that next time, they would beat Poirot, Miss Marple or whoever to the solution.
I managed it once, with a solution based on the spelling of a name. Significantly; Christie's magic only works when she is in absolute control. With the stage's restrictions and actors' need to shade what they say credibly, the whole caboodle collapses into whiskery absurdity.
Talking of which, Jonathan Batterby's redoubtable butler gets the whiskers off to a strong start, and it's no surprise that when the 'action' grinds to a conclusion with a piece of news no-one could have predicted, it involves the removal of the production's most unconvincing hairpiece.
Director John Durnin and his company throw everything at this piece of absurdity (Chimneys, that is, rather than the hairpiece). They earn their money, especially Darrell Brockis as the mysterious yet bright-mannered Cade (is he a cad beneath that suavity?) who has a lot to do and Flora Berkeley, who should be the main female interest but is never allowed to do anything significant.
There are splendid sets, with a view of chimneys in the background (it's the name of the house where this codswallop's all set; no Trade Description Act's going to catch out designer Ken Harrison). Zere are foreign accents so unconvincing zat no-one vill efer know ver zertain of zese characters come from. There's Pitlochry stalwart Martyn James to give full-throated conviction to an old politico codger as only he can. There are even attempts to give reality to the background of Christie's story in what P G Wodehouse called "friction in the Balkans" with news announcements from 1926 and a final sound-effect suggesting all may not live happily ever-after.
But, despite the script's (approving) references to the West intervening to support their oil-supply interests, it doesn't work. Derision grew even in a Pitlochry matinee audience,as likely a market for this tosh as anyone. Reverting to the Trade Descriptions Act,here's a challenge for Durnin: to find a thriller that actually thrills.
Tredwell: Jonathan Battersby
Lemoine: Jonathan Coote
Old Lady: Jacqueline Dutiot
Lord Caterham: Robin Harvey Edwards
Lady Eileen Brent: Michele Gallagher
The Hon George Lomadx: Martyn James
Bill Eversleigh: Jonathan Dryden Taylor
Anthony Cade: Darrel Brockis
Virginia Revel: Flora Berkeley
Stranger: Richard Addison
Superintendent Battle: Ronnie Simon
Herbert Banks: Matthew Lloyd Davies
Boris Anchoucoff: Richard Galazka
Director: John Durnin
Designer: Adrian Rees
Lighting: Ace McCarron
Soun d: Ronnie McConnell
Costume: Anya Glinski
Dialect coach: Alex Gillon
Fight director: Raymond Short
2006-08-14 14:10:49