The Lowry, Salford – until Saturday 14th July 2018
Reviewed by Julie Noller
4****
Agatha Christie the Queen of crime fiction with such well developed characters such as the lovable Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot, both adored with many millions around the world tuning into watch the many TV and film adaptions that have been developed over the decades. I, as I am sure many in the audience watching Love from a Stranger, have read her books. She had an uncanny eye for people, the depth of her characters personalities makes them totally and utterly believable. Agatha Christie’s name alone would sell any play to me, you expect suspense, drama, mystery and intrigue all mixed together with clever plots and perhaps a dash of murder. Love from a Stranger was first written in 1924 as a short story before being adapted by Frank Vosper in 1936 with a little help from Agatha Christie herself. It was billed as a brilliant terror play a tag line that could stand even today.
Fanastic direction by Lucy Bailey really brings the set alive it’s the attention to the small details that have you questioning during the interval, what is happening, what is to come. Music begins to fill the auditorium before curtain up. Slowly at first you catch a faint buzz that made me think I had tinnitus. Growing louder and louder before I heard a clock ticking and realised it was playing it’s part in building the suspense, rather like the opening credits of a television show. Each time you hear that music during the performance your heart would beat just a little bit faster. I loved the use of strip lights to highlight the change in circumstances and time, how the set itself all moved across the stage in a stroke of genius that stops your eye becoming too accustomed to it’s surroundings and seeking out potential clues. I believed I saw and detected a few clues yet I’m equally convinced if I watched again there would be many things I missed. The action takes place between the two acts, firstly in a flat in Bayswater, London and then in a cottage in West Sussex. It is 1958 and important to remember this is a time before internet warnings and homes rarely had television broadcasting news articles with photographs. Honesty was prevalent to be British we were nice, a stiff upper lip was still the done thing, emotion was a female trait and something to be sneered at.
We begin with Mavis Wilson (Alice Haig) packing up her flat with help or should that be hindrance from Aunty Lou ‘Louise Garrard’ (Nicola Sanderson). Mavis down to earth, working for her living, steady and dependable. You sense she doesn’t suffer fools gladly but this is 1958 and in her do you sense a little jealousy? Her friend and flatmate is about to get married after a long engagement and separation. Would she swap places, happily settle down to a life of wedded bliss? Aunty Lou is a fabulously comic character although I’m not entirely sure she was firstly written that way. Has she developed in my eyes as I’ve got older and can see how rich a character she is, I almost can see David Walliams watching this play and upon leaving basing one of his comedy personas on Aunty Lou. Helen Bradbury plays Cecily Harrington betrothed to Michael who has been working in The Sudan for three years. She is having cold feet as many brides to be have had. But there.s a desperation about her having won £50, 000 in a sweepstake she shared with Mavis. She is in turn jealous of Mavis and her three months escape to go on an adventure holiday. How she longs to have excitement and Michael she fears just may be too steady and reliable to give her that excitement. This is where timing is key and split second decisions alter her life.
Mavis upon hearing her frustrations decides to leave Cecily alone to welcome home Michael. Mavis herself is angered and showing lack of compassion for her friend neglects to inform her of the stranger coming to view the flat with a mind to renting it for three months. That stranger arrives in the form of floppy blonde haired, free spirited, fun loving American Bruce Lovell (Sam Frenchum) he immediately raises your heckles in the audience, you sense danger is lurking. He takes Cecilys photograph without her knowing, sniffs at her negligee. The he slowly reels her in. It isn’t a hard task shes bored, he has a sense of adventure that appeals to her. As quickly as he appears her life is unravelling. Michael Lawrence (Justin Avoth) firstly appears like a drippy English man, boring suit and slicked hair, even his moustache looks pathetic. You want to cheer Cecily for dumping him and heading away on adventure.
The cottage in Sussex is an expensive place to hire Bruce and Cecily immediately married and how Cecily has changed she is no longer the strong independent woman who craved adventure but happily and meekly mild wife, so in love or lust with Bruce eagerly pleasing him and agreeing to his every whim. Bruce is clever you sense that his words are long practised, the isolation of the cottage is deliberate although you hope not. Ethel (Molly Logan) is another great example of how Christie could bring characters alive with humour, a very loud and clumsy maid, quite as you see Miss Marple training in her stories. Gardener Hodgson (Gareth Williams) who tells it as it is, salt of the earth. An innocent slip of the tongue has everything unravelling, the truth will out. Small villages may be remote but nothing is missed by the eyes of a sharp friend who knows when something is wrong. Dr Gribble (Crispin Redman) shares a love of murders and reads the same magazines as Bruce, he senses Cecily is in danger and attempts to warn her.
Happily Cecily reconciles with both Mavis and Michael who we see dressed casually not as the stuffy Englishman but how wrong we were, he may be safe and dependable but excitement can itself be boring if its everyday, we need to breathe sometimes. His only crime was loving Cecily and being unable to communicate that love to her. I don’t want to give the ending away but feel it’s fair to say you may inhale a little too loudly, you may gasp as the audience around me did. I wasn’t expecting a hint of raunchy behaviour from an Agatha Christie play but it highlights perfectly how easily we stray from the path we think we chose.
I did expect twist and turns perhaps subplots, yet I had no idea where they may come from. I believe that’s the best way to watch Love from a Stranger. Enjoy the action from well developed characters who are as diverse as stereotyping can be. The only thing you can be certain of before curtain up is that Agatha Christie knew her characters not only as two dimensional on paper but inside and out, three dimensional living and breathing. I think it’s fair to say that we all need the love of good friends.