THE HOLLOW. In rep to 18 October.

Pitlochry

THE HOLLOW
by Agatha Christie

Pitlochry Festival Theatre In rep to 18 October 2002
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Wed & Sat 2pm
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS 01796 484626
boxoffice@pitlochry.org.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 21 August

Strong acting and production standards, but this Christie play spends too long treading narrative water.Agatha Christie shocked people by the denouement of her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Despite the casting from strength and high production standards of this Pitlochry resuscitation, it leaves me with critic Edmund Wilson when he responded to the 1926 book with Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?

But, not only is this a good production – it's the only Christie play you'll see for some time, as the Estate has withdrawn stage performance rights. It's hard to regret it for this play, which really should have stayed as a novel - though Christie sensibly took the chance to remove her awkwardly inserted detective regular Hercule Poirot.

It takes to the interval to reach the only murder, but its victim has long been obvious, as the wholesale cad around. It's a shame Ian Grieve couldn't find him some let-up in his relentless self-obsession. As it is, you feel the purpose of act two is to uncover the murderer and thank them for removing a crushing bore from the Angkatell living-room at The Hollow.

There is a near-murder later, though the outcome depends on the time it takes to fetch some tea: brewing a cuppa seems a task that varies with dramatic necessity.

As for the killer, it can't by Martyn James, he's such a Pitlochry stalwart, turning in another dependable performance. And Alice Fraser softens Lady A.'s eccentricities from the sinister implications the suspicious reader might give them, to create a humorously sympathetic person. She can't have done it. (Besides, her entry trailing a lobster provides a surreal moment surely worth a reprieve).

Nor Gudgeon. The butler may be fishy but Michael Mackenzie wouldn't have needed a gun: a few seconds of his disapproving basilisk stare could do for anyone.

Personally, I suspected the new maid Doris's dad – we never see him but she says he's a Labour supporter, so clearly up to no good.

Not a great mystery then, but splendidly designed and valiantly acted, with diamond-cutting English accents. Ideal for those who agree with wispy young inheritor Edward that, 'The past is sometimes a good place to live.'

Henrietta Angkatell: Kitty Lucas
Sir Henry Angkatell: Martyn James
Lady Angkatell: Alice Fraser
Midge Harvey: Helen Logan
Gudgeon: Michael Mackenzie
Edward Angkatell: Richard Keynes
Doris: Lucy Paterson
Gerda Cristow: Jo Freer
John Cristow: Gavin Kean
Veronica Craye: Anne Kidd
Inspector Colquhoun: Moray Treadwell
Detective Sergeant Penny: Matt blair

Director: Ian Grieve
Designer: Adrian Rees
Lighting: Mark Pritchard
Costume: Monika Nisbet

2002-08-23 09:47:11