Tag Archives: Connaught

I Met A Man Who Wasn’t There – May 2011

6/10

By Philip Meeks

Directed by Bruce James

Company: Bruce James Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Friday 27th May 2007

This was a reasonably decent modern supernatural thriller, which didn’t scare me much, but did have some tension, and the unravelling of the story was well done. It was a two-hander with a cast instantly recognisable from the soaps – Cathy Shipton as Amanda Schilling and Brian Capron as Edgar Ryme, a supposed clairvoyant. She’s a journalist who claims to be doing an article on clairvoyants, and is willing to pay him for his time and information. They swap ghost stories and it’s clear she’s got something to hide, but then so does he, and then strange things begin to happen…….

The set was a small living/dining room in an upstairs flat. Window with permanently drawn curtains to the left, then the door to the kitchen, then an area I couldn’t see very well – hidden by the table – but it had the record player, then the dresser with various windmills and other knick-knacks. Centre back was the fireplace with a large mirror over; the fireplace was screened off with a board and there was a small electric fire in front of that. The door to the outside world was to the right of the fireplace, then a table and comfy chair. There was a sofa under the window, and the dining table with chairs was front and left.

We moved closer in the interval, as I wasn’t able to hear all the dialogue in our original seats. Sadly, the theatre was less than half-full, so we had no problem relocating. The title refers to the poem Antigonish by Hughes Mearns (I’m relying on Wikipedia here, so fingers crossed), which David keeps reciting as part of his strategy for taking over Edgar, and it did become a bit creepy after a while. The performances were fine, and although the writing was a little clunky at times, there were also several fine speeches, most notably Amanda’s description of her time in Bosnia. It may not be a masterpiece, but this deserves better audiences, and I hope they get them.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Chosen Ones – March 2011

5/10

By: Philip Gladwin

Directed by: Patric Kearns

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 15th March 2011

This just scraped a 5/10 rating, despite a host of problems. The theatre was unbelievably stuffy, the people in front of us were tall enough to block our view for most of the time, the dialogue, when we could hear it, was pretty weak, the casting of a much younger actor as the father who was meant to be in his fifties didn’t work that well, and yet I found I managed to enjoy myself enough for the 5/10 rating. Perhaps the fact that I snoozed through about twenty minutes of the first half helped. Steve tried to fill me in, but either I didn’t miss that much or the situation developed really slowly, as he wasn’t able to add a lot.

The set was fairly simple. To the left, the patio area of a house. Round the back, a picket fence with central gate. There were three loungers in front of the patio, and a bench on the right. Leafless branches hung from above suggested a country garden. The costumes were modern.

The characters on stage at the start were a father and his two children, a  son and a daughter. With no clear age difference, it took us while to establish the relationships, but it emerged that the daughter was due to get married soon, the son was about to head off to Hong Kong to work in some new business venture, and they were spending the weekend with their father to celebrate his birthday. His business was going through a tricky patch, nothing he couldn’t handle, but he was concerned about the possibility of losing his biggest customer. They bicker a bit, but seem to be relatively happy with each other. The house and garden are fairly remote, with the nearest neighbour being two miles away. After the initial chat, they settle down for some serious sunbathing.

At this point, another character appears by the fence on the right, a young man. He looks at the family, then walks round to the gate at the back, and enters very quietly. He picks up some pebbles and throws one at the girl, who tells her brother to lay off. After another pebble, she looks round, and sees the stranger. The father recognises him as Callum, who’s being working on the garden, and he invites him to stay a while.

This is where I started to have problems with the performance. The young man was talking, but I couldn’t make out a word. After quite a while I managed to get that he was speaking with a Scouse accent, although the dialogue describes it as a bit Manchester, a bit Scottish, a bit of everything. It certainly wasn’t that mixed, but it was so strong I often had problem with Callum’s dialogue in the first half, although I did find it easier to follow in the second half. He starts to spin a story for the family, about his hard life, etc. (I confess I didn’t hear it all), and then when the son and father are off stage getting drinks, he seduces the daughter into giving him a snog – very weird. The father and son are appalled at this – she is going to be married after all – but before Callum leaves, he shows the father a ‘present’ he’s brought him, a silver bracelet with an inscription inside which the father recognises. After all, he gave Callum’s mother the bracelet many years ago during their affair, an affair which produced Callum. So with Callum being revealed as a newcomer to the family, the situation changes a bit. Still creepy, but the father wants to include Callum so they all make a bit of an effort. Unfortunately, Callum has other ideas.

This is where I snoozed, and when I came to the son was confessing that his business deal involved taking his father’s best customer from him, after Callum exposed his calls to ‘Mike’ as actually being to ’Steve’, the father’s friend and ex-best customer. The daughter had already been outed as a slut, who regularly cheated on her boyfriends with other men. She’d apparently decided not to marry James, her fiancé, as she realises it wouldn’t be fair on him. The father was coming in for a bit of stick as well, given that he’d admitted cheating on his wife. His son’s complaints were that the father had never involved him in the business, so that he’d had to make his own way, so his dad deserved what he got.

All of this is bad enough, but things get worse when the father tries to eject Callum again. He draws a gun out of his rucksack, and threatens them all with it. Curtain. At the start of the second half, they’re all still in the garden, and Callum’s plan begins to get going. He wants to know why the father chose to stay with his wife and children instead of leaving them to be with the woman he loved, Callum’s mother, and of course, Callum himself. His mother apparently went a bit batty after her rejection, although she never said a bad word about the father. She kept moving around, giving Callum a difficult upbringing, not to mention a whole heap of resentment, and was also dead now. The father explains that it was seeing his two children, the son aged about four holding his new baby sister, that made him decide to stay with his wife. He claims it was a terribly hard decision to make, and goes on a bit about how much he suffered, but basically he chose his two legitimate children over his lover and their son. He also managed to tell his lover he was leaving her shortly before she was due to give birth – there’s tact for you.

So now for Callum’s revenge. Getting them all to handcuff themselves to the bench, he tries to force the father to choose which of these two children he will choose to live, and which to die. He then heads off into the house to get some brandy, giving the father about twenty minutes to make his mind up. This allows the family to each have their say, the daughter all repentant and snivelling, the son brash and unrepentant. When Callum returns, he threatens them all with the gun, and finally the father tells him to shoot the son. This is what Callum wants to hear; he’s not going to shoot anyone, in fact he gives them the keys so they can unlock themselves. The father tackles him, kicks him while he’s down, then takes the gun and makes as if to shoot him. But the father has been counting the bullets, and knows there’s none left. Callum doesn’t, which tells the father he wasn’t much good as a soldier, probably why he was thrown out of the army. However, the damage is done, as the son isn’t too happy with the father’s choice. He leaves with the daughter, and Callum gloats that he’s won. The final tableau has the father and Callum alone on stage, with father moving from his knees into a sitting position.

This was all very well, but the questions remain. How did Callum know about all the family secrets? He obviously knew about the father’s affair as he was a direct result, but the son’s business dealings? The daughter’s affairs? And how did he know who his father was? We have to assume his mother told him, but it’s not clear. There were other problems with the plot, but overall it kept me watching with a reasonable amount of interest. We both felt the piece could have done with a lot of cutting, and might have done better as TV piece with a stronger cast. Still, the audience was fuller than last time, and the applause was good, which is important when the future of the Connaught is in the balance.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Black Veil – March 2011

Rating: 5/10

By: John Goodrum, based on a short story by Charles Dickens

Directed by: Bruce James

Venue: Connaught Theatre, Worthing

Date: Friday 4th March 2011

This production was by the same team that gave us The Signalman back in 2009. We both felt this wasn’t such a good adaptation; in particular, the opening scene was too long-winded, with the veiled lady going on at great length about her distress while not actually getting round to explaining her concerns. I admit to nodding off during this scene, but Steve brought me up to speed at the interval.

The set was a bit sparse, even for a touring production, and perhaps part of the problem was that the open nature of the acting space reduced the atmosphere. In any case, the second half worked better for us once the third character turned up and the plot began to unravel nicely.

The story was simple enough to begin with. A young doctor gets a visit late at night from an elderly, frail lady who is wearing  thick black veil. She has come to the doctor for help, but claims that he can’t actually do anything. Instead of turfing her out, he insists on getting involved, and agrees to come to her lodgings the next morning even though it will be too late, the man she wants him to help is already dead! From various clues, it sounds as though the man she’s talking about – her son – is due to be executed, but it’s never made clear (at least not while I was awake). We do find out that the young doctor, whose practice hasn’t got going yet, which is why he’s keen to accept any patient at all, was engaged to be married to a young woman, but called it off when he saw how she treated her bedridden mother. He had since become engaged to another lady, and was only waiting to establish his medical practice and earn a decent income before he can marry her, as he  has to obtain her brother’s approval.

The next day, he arrives very early at the hard-to-find address down by the docks. The woman brings him in, but doesn’t show him the ‘patient’ right away. There’s a short pause, and then she leads him up to the bedroom where a man lies on the bed. He appears to have been hung, and life is quite extinct. Then things take a turn for the worse, as a violent thug arrives, banging on the door demanding to be let in. The woman explained that this thug was responsible for her son’s death. The two men had become involved in some burglary, and during it a security guard was killed. Her son was caught and convicted of the murder, while the man who had actually done it got off scot free. This was the man who was banging on the door, although when he got in and confronted them both, he told a different story. His version had the son killing the guard, but his own actions suggested a homicidal streak which made it more likely he was the guilty party.

Then the story changes completely, as the doctor is told to look closely at the dead man, and asked if he recognises him. He doesn’t, but it’s not surprising, as he’s never met his fiancée’s brother. It turns out that the dead man is indeed the brother of the doctor’s fiancée, lured to London by a forged letter which appeared to be from the doctor, inviting the brother down to London to see for himself the doctor’s lovely lodgings, and killed just before the doctor himself entered the room. The trap has been set – the dead man, and the doctor’s arrival just before he died, will make it look as if the doctor killed him in order to marry his fiancée without needing the brother’s consent. The forged letter, in the doctor’s own handwriting, will clinch the deal. But who has set this trap?

Well, it takes a little while, but the thug reveals himself to be a man who deeply loved the previous fiancée whom the doctor jilted. Once rejected, the young lady apparently pined away, and this revenge was plotted by the lover and the young lady’s mother, the elderly lady in the veil. The mother then began to criticise the doctor, telling him that she’d been happy with the way her daughter treated her, and asking him what it was that she had said which had made the doctor break off the engagement. Well, it was all too unlikely for me, and it wasn’t long before the old lady was exposed as the young lady, and the similarity with Fatal Attraction became clear. Naturally, she’d killed off her mother, by leaving her food outside her door so she starved to death, but she’s still obsessed with knowing what her mother had said that affected the doctor so much he broke off the engagement. He assures her there wasn’t anything, just her treatment of her mother, but she’s well gone by now. There’s a mad chase outside the house, and then first the lover, then the deranged ex-fiancée end up in the river. Whew.

The final twists and turns were enjoyable enough, but the piece could do with some serious cutting to make it more tense. The performances were good enough, and I’d be happy to see future adaptations by this company.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Ghost and Mrs Muir – October 2010

5/10

By: R A Dick

Directed by: Patric Kearns

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Wednesday 6th October 2010

This was an enjoyable enough performance for the Connaught. Steve had seen this story before, via the TV series, while it was new to me, though I can’t say there were any real surprises. The adaptation worked well enough; the pace was pretty slow throughout, but the performances were fine, though as the main acting area was set back from the front of the stage, we were too far to hear and see everything clearly for the first half. We moved nearer for the second half (sadly, the theatre was half empty), and that went better for me. I even noticed that the lifebelt on the wall had the word ‘scarlet’ painted on it.

There were gasps when the bastard boyfriend callously suggested that Mrs Muir abandon her children to live with him. At that point it was hard to relate to a mother who would be so in love that she would even consider that option, rather than show the man the door straightaway, but the ghost soon dealt with the intruder and saw him off. Hurrah!

The set looked like it was designed to fit much smaller stages, as is often the case with touring productions, but it had all the necessary ingredients, and the two main characters would often come to the front to talk in a spotlight for a bit, or act out a small scene which wasn’t in Gull Cottage, such as Mrs Muir selling her diamond brooch, with a little help from her friend.

So not a bad evening, and I’m glad to be back in action again.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Inside Job – June 2010

6/10

By Brian Clemens

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Wednesday 9th June 2010

A decent thriller this, even though both Steve and I had worked out what was happening before the end. It’s set in Spain, where a husband and wife each hire the same ex-pat criminal to kill the other, promising insurance money and/or diamonds to pay for it. There were a couple of explosions, a bloody corpse, and more twists and turns than a mountain road. The cast all did a respectable job, with Matt Healy having more tongue in his cheek than the others. What with slurping drinks, rattling ice, and crinkling ice cream wrappers, the audience were almost noisier than the action on stage during the opening scene of the second half, but on the whole it was enjoyable enough.

The play starts with the wife, Suzy, having lured ‘Larry’ to the villa with the promise of sex, offering a completely different proposition. She’s found out that ‘Larry’ is, in fact, ‘Dutch’ Holland, a criminal on the run from the British police. She wants to get away from her husband, and persuades Dutch to return later to rob the safe – it’s supposed to have £100,000 worth of diamonds in it – and split the proceeds with her.

He agrees, but when he tries to carry out the robbery, the husband, Alex, surprises him, and despite being apparently shot and killed, manages to recover and turn the tables on the robber. The bullets were blanks, of course, but now Alex reloads with the real thing, and carries out the sort of conversation with Dutch that only ever happens in thrillers. Finally, he comes out with his own proposition – Dutch will carry out another robbery, only this time, Alex will have a cast-iron alibi and Suzy will be killed instead. The life insurance of £300,000 is dangled to tempt Dutch, but in reality he will have the diamonds which are not yet in the safe, but which will be arriving in a few days, and which are also, coincidentally, worth £300,000.

They do some planning then, and also the next day, when Alex sends Suzy off on a wild goose chase to pick up some cigars so that he and Dutch can confer alone. However, Dutch has already tipped Suzy off, and when she shows him letters from the insurance company which indicate that her life insurance has lapsed, but Alex’s cover is still active, it doesn’t take much brain power to work out where this one is going. There’s another twist, though, when Suzy returns from the cigar shop. After parking the car, she heads for the house and is nearly there when the car blows up! Who’s attempting to kill whom?

The second half starts about an hour after the explosion. Suzy has cleaned herself up, and Dutch is waiting with her while Alex is off dealing with the police. Dutch suggests killing Alex for the insurance money, explaining how he could set it up to give her the perfect alibi. He would come along, take the diamonds, kill Alex, and then tie her up so it will look like the robbers (she has to tell the police it was two men) were trying to get the combination of the safe out of her when Alex came back and was killed. It means she’ll have to wait through the night for someone to find her, but he’s even planned a reason for him to call the police to get them to come over and check up on Alex and find her. It seems like a foolproof plan, but can she trust him, and vice versa?

Then Alex comes up with another idea himself. His car is similar to the local mayor’s, and he suggested to the police that separatists may have targeted the mayor and blown up his car by mistake. He plans to use this to enhance the cover story they’ve been working on, but it means redirecting the police to think that he was the target of the car bomb all along. If only he could get a bomb! By an amazing coincidence, it turns out Dutch is a ‘bang-man’, specialising in bombs and fires, and he agrees to supply a small device so that Alex can blow up a yacht he has in the marina. When Alex sets off with the bomb, using Dutch’s car, both Steve and I wondered if the bomb would actually stay in Dutch’s car, to blow him up later, but a short while later there’s an explosion in the marina. So that’s alright, then. On the way back, Alex is picking up the diamonds, so the scene is almost set for the murder, but which one is going to be killed?

The final scene has the room in disarray, with Alex drinking wildly, when Dutch turns up. Apparently Alex has jumped the gun and killed Suzy already. He shows Dutch (and us) the dead body in the kitchen, behind the curtain, and offers him all the diamonds to help him out of the hole he’s dug for himself. Dutch agrees, and with some ties from the Alex’s wardrobe, he adapts the plan he outlined to Suzy for the new circumstances. Now it’s Alex who’ll be tied up, and will have to tell the police that two masked men burst in, demanded he open the safe, and then killed Suzy when she came back from her walk. Only it doesn’t work out that way.

Once Alex is safely trussed up, and Dutch has the diamonds and the loaded gun, he explains to Alex what’s really going to happen. I won’t go into all the details, but basically he’s going to cause a huge fireball in the room using some candles and a build-up of gas. No evidence will be left, and he’ll be free and clear. He gloats about as long as is safe, and then buggers off. As soon as he’s gone, Suzy comes out of the kitchen, blows out the candles and turns off the gas. As we’d suspected, Suzy and Alex were working together to bring Dutch to justice, since the British police had been unable to do so. In fact, Alex was a Detective Inspector, and Dutch had killed Suzy’s brother, so they both had a strong motive to nail him.

Having told the police that a suspected bomber was heading down the hill in a blue Mercedes, and with Dutch’s little bomb safely stowed in the boot (Alex had made his own for the marina explosion) they hope the police will either catch him and put him away for the rest of his natural, or get a bit trigger-happy and avoid the need for a trial. There is some machine-gun fire, as it happens, but Dutch gets away, and of course he ends up back at the villa to confront the duplicitous pair who tricked him. The gun still has blanks in it, and after firing at them, he collapses on the floor, revealing the three bullet holes in his back. The end.

We’d guessed most of this long before the end. We both wondered if Suzy would come to life before Dutch left, and kill him on his way out. He even stopped several times in front of the curtain, just to tease us, I suppose. That Alex and Suzy were working together to bring Dutch down occurred to each of us about half way through, although we didn’t know the details. An interesting challenge.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Nightfright – May 2010

6/10

By Roger S Moss

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Thursday 20th May 2010

A decent enough production of a pretty average thriller. Ian Dickens Productions tend to do these very much tongue in cheek, and there were certainly a few laughs tonight, though we suspect the locked kitchen door swinging open wasn’t planned. The set had the main entrance far left, window, door to kitchen, locked cupboard door, stairs to upper level (bedroom), door far right to garden/graveyard. This was a converted chapel, which was being rented out by an unscrupulous pair to provide suitable bodies for organ harvesting. Along come one newlywed couple, arriving a day before the resident villains have finished clearing up the previous occupant, and years of careful planning go to waste. How frustrating.

The regular in the cast, David Callister, did a good job as the multiple personality medical villain, while Joanne Heywood matched him as the schizophrenic estate agent come neighbourly vamp. I noticed they were both smiling at the end when they took their bows – I assume that it’s good fun playing those parts, and not something to take seriously. The leads were OK, though I found Helen George’s voice a bit nasal for my liking. But the main problem was the weak writing. It lost all credibility for me when the couple failed to call the police after finding the bloodstained clothes hidden up the chimney, not to mention the freshly dug grave in the no longer used graveyard. Still, they did their best, and we enjoyed ourselves well enough.

I did like the spoof CVs for the fake actors, to give the audience the mildest challenge possible in spotting the double casting. The inclusion of The Grain Store in the actress’s RSC credits was a particularly nice touch, I thought.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Alfie – February 2010

6/10

By Bill Naughton

Directed by Adrian McDougall

Company: Blackeyed Theatre

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Thursday 11th February 2010

The main problem with this performance was the sparse response from the audience. The cast did their best, but with such a small turnout we couldn’t get any atmosphere going until nearly the end, and then the abortion section took all the fun out of things.

Neither Steve nor I have watched the film all the way through (it’s impossible not to have seen clips) but since the story was familiar we reckon we may have seen the play years ago. The vast Connaught stage had no trouble holding the various chairs, tables, beds and other paraphernalia needed for the production and still had plenty of room for the band at the back. The pauses between scenes were often covered by music, but they still slowed things up too much for me. Again, the size of the stage didn’t help them, as they had even further to push or carry the furniture.

There were only five actors in the cast so there was plenty of doubling, and I thought they all did their characters very well. Edward Elks as Alfie was very good, delivering his lines well and getting across the inner emptiness of Alfie’s life of ‘pleasure’. The chauvinist attitudes are largely out-of-date, and so too hopefully is the passive acceptance by the women, though I suspect there’s more of both about than I would like. The change in perspectives probably also contributed to the lack of response, as it was hard sometimes to find Alfie’s banter funny. This production is mainly touring to smaller places and I expect a more intimate venue would improve the experience tremendously.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Murder On Air – October 2009

6/10

By Agatha Christie

Directed by Joe Harmston

Company: The Agatha Christie Theatre Company

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Friday 16th October 2009

In similar fashion to the Round The Horne homage currently touring, this ‘play’ was basically a reconstruction of three Agatha Christie radio plays from the 50s, performed with the cast in full evening regalia, and with a wonderful sound effects man to one side. The three radio plays were Personal Call, The Yellow Iris, and after the interval, Butter In A Lordly Dish (it helps to know your Bible for that one).

This version of the production had Susan Penhaligon and Nicky Henson as the guest stars, and Nicky took the part of Poirot in The Yellow Iris (which later morphed into Sparkling Cyanide). The rest of the cast did a great job with their parts, including sound effects (train), background rhubarb, and shocked gasps. There was a piece of attempted humour with the music, as one of the men appeared to lose his instrument and his place, but it fell a bit flat tonight as nobody seemed to notice it and nobody laughed. The house was less than half full, so I think the lack of atmosphere had a lot to do with it.

The stories were fairly predictable. Let’s face it, a soon as you know a chap’s first wife has died in a tragic accident, and he and his second wife are making wills leaving all their dosh to each other, it’s pretty clear what’s happening. Even so, I enjoyed the way the stories were told, especially when two of the actors were talking in cockney accents while they were all dolled up in their finery. For the end of the final story, when the sound effects chap was hitting a nail into a cabbage, he kept doing it, harder and harder, as he made the closing announcement. The cabbage practically disintegrated – Steve even found a bit of cabbage on his coat at the end, and we were back in row H! I also realised why I don’t care to listen to plays on the radio. The voices, despite the actors’ different accents, are too similar. It’s easier for me to keep track of the characters and the scene changes when I can see them.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Signalman – September 2009

6/10

By John Goodrum, based on the short story by Charles Dickens

Directed by John Goodrum

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 15th September 2009

I vaguely remember reading a ghost story involving a signalman many years ago, but I was basically ignorant of what would happen tonight. As it was I found myself drawn in to the stories told by the two characters, the signalman and his visitor, and the denouement gave both of us a shiver.

The staging was very good, I thought. The arch of a railway tunnel was centre back, with a red light high beside it on the left. High rocky walls enclosed the cutting on either side, while the signalman’s hut was front right. The lighting emphasised each location as the action shifted between outside and inside. The signalman’s hut had few furnishings, but the telegraph signal machine was prominent.

I very much liked the way they showed a train coming through the tunnel. A white light shining from within the tunnel indicated the train, and there was be some smoke and steam coming out as well. Then the lighting flickered over the set like the light from passing carriage windows as the train rushed past, together with the appropriate sound effects. It was an impressive way to deal with it, and certainly got my imagination fully engaged. I realised after a few of these that the signalman was looking up at the train because he was at ground level, not on a platform.

The opening scene was well done, creating just the right sense of chill, as only the visitor was talking. The signalman’s reaction, apparently frozen with fear, got my nerves tingling and the spooky sound of the visitor’s calls from on high at the start also contributed to this. I gather this tour had only started about a week ago which explains why the signalman was having difficulty remembering his lines, and didn’t always deliver the ones he could remember as clearly as I would have liked, but we got the gist and given that the signalman was meant to be a man in the grip of a strong emotional quandary the mixing up of a few words was entirely in keeping. The visitor was perfectly clear, and with the excellent staging this made for an enjoyable and slightly scary evening.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

And Then There Were None – November 2008

6/10

By Agatha Christie

Directed by Joe Harmston

Agatha Christie Theatre Company

Connaught Theatre

Monday 17th November 2008

This was very good fun. We’d seen the production by the same company in London back in 2005 and enjoyed it then, but this was completely recast (and a touring version, so that the set was less elaborate) and it was still an excellent performance. We were particularly interested to see it so that we could look out for the actual murders; several take place on stage, and in full view of the audience, but as Agatha Christie is a master of misdirection, the audience rarely spots them. We did our best and saw a few, but I still missed a number of the killings.

The opening scene was quite light hearted, with all the cast doing their best to make it seem like a 1930s comedy rather than a whodunit. I found one chap, Alex Ferns, difficult to make out as his speech seemed slurred most of the time, but overall the dialogue was easy to hear. The set was pretty good with a huge round window centre back, a fireplace to our left with the poem and the ten little soldiers, and a few chairs about the place. The costumes were also 1930s style, and the whole piece worked very well in that context.

The first death put a bit of a blight on the occasion and then as each extra body was added to the toll, the tension began to rise. One scene was played in total or near darkness as the generator had run down and they had to use candles. It helped with the atmosphere as well as the plot, and the way the story had been slightly altered to keep all of the action in the one room was very good. The London production had introduced a few extra locations but this one stayed put, and I understand from the program notes that this was Christie’s own version of the play. She certainly knew how to keep people guessing.

Of course we knew who the guilty party was from the off, and I did my best to keep an eye on that person throughout, while still enjoying the whole performance. Even knowing who the murderer was, I still felt the pressure mounting at the end, when there are only two people left on the island and it’s clear that one of them has done all the murders. It’s the sign of a good writer, and Agatha Christie’s skill in this area has often been underrated. A good cast helps to get the most out of the characters as well, and tonight’s ensemble did a very good job. The soldiers weren’t disappearing quite as consistently as they did in London, but with the smaller set that might have been difficult to arrange so they tended to go during the scene changes. Not a problem, as the tension comes in other ways, too.

I was very aware of the play’s structure. The opening scene has a series of guests arriving at this island retreat and being introduced to one another, so we get to hear the names a number of times. Excellent. With such a large group of characters, and with a name change due very soon after the start, it’s important to register their names with us, and that’s what we get. Then, as the murders progress, we no sooner hear a guest’s own story, or confession, than they’re bumped off, which helped to balance the concerns I certainly felt about such one-sided retribution. After all, these people haven’t had a chance to speak in their own defence so some of them might be innocent. But there are enough confessions, and enough assertions of innocence supported by details that clearly show the opposite, that we can relax a little with the possibility that none of these people is being killed unjustly. (I think the book makes the guilt of each murderee quite explicit in its closing explanation.)

So this was a very good night out, and I would even like to see it again, to pick up on the murders I missed.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me