SPIDER'S WEB: Christie.
Nottingham/Touring.
SPIDER’S WEB: Agatha Christie.
Tour Details: The Agatha Christie Theatre Company.
Runs: 2h 35m: one interval.
Review: Alan Geary: Theatre Royal, Nottingham: 22 June 2009.
Connoisseurs of the whodunit/thriller will be delighted to spot that gem of a line, “Blackmail is a very ugly word”.
Connoisseurs of the whodunit/thriller will be delighted to spot that gem of a line, “Blackmail is a very ugly word”, cropping up quite early in Spider’s Web. Otherwise, except for some over-extended character introduction and situation setting, not a lot happens for a while - it’s a longish wait for anything murderous.
Perhaps because it’s an original stage play - there are some clunking allusions to Neville Duke and Chris Chatterway to show this is 1952 - rather than an adaptation of a book, we get an altogether more ragged plot than most of Christie’s.
There’s much to enjoy though. Even considering that director Joe Harmston is giving us an entertaining send-up of the genre, Robert Duncan’s Hugo Birch is massively over-acted. The bulging eyes, silly plus-fours and outrageous limp are way over the top. But Bruce Montague, Denis Lill and Melanie Gutteridge get it right.
Montague makes Sir Rowland a knowing, subtly amusing, grey-haired father figure. Lill’s be-mackintoshed Inspector Lord, with his delayed-action puzzlement and rapid speech is like half of a music hall act - the other half of the act, Constable Jones (Mark Rose), keeps his helmet on all the time and has a Welsh accent. Gutteridge is entirely watchable as Clarrisa, girlish and irresponsible yet protective of her step-daughter. You have to wonder why she married the useless Henry (Lucas Hare), who bears an amazing resemblance to Reggie Christie, the real-life early-fifties serial killer (no relation).
The obvious rotter is Costello, played by Matthew Hebden. You can tell he’s a bad egg because his hair is so shiny it hurts the eyes to look at it and he smokes fags. He even helps himself from Clarissa’s cigarette box then has the gall to offer her one. And he has a terrible jacket. Elgin (Michael Gabe) is also unusually seedy for a butler.
That appalling early-fifties class-consciousness and deference is well observed. It all happens in the drawing-room of a splendid country house in the Home Counties - somehow you knew it wouldn't be set in a council house the other side of Doncaster.
Inspector Lord: Dennis Lill.
Clarissa Hailsham-Brown: Melanie Gutteridge.
Mildred Peake: Catherine Shipton.
Jeremy Warrender: Ben Nealon.
Sir Rowland Delahaye: Bruce Montague.
Hugo Birch: Robert Duncan.
Pippa Hailsham-Brown: Karen Elliot.
Elgin: Michael Gabe.
Henry Hailsham-Brown: Lucas Hare.
Oliver Costello: Matthew Hebden.
Constable Jones: Mark Rose.
Director: Joe Harmston.
Designer: Simon Scullion.
Lighting Designer: Mark Howett.
Costume Designer/Supervisor: Brigid Guy.
Sound Designer: Ian Horrocks-Taylor.
2009-07-03 10:41:59