Festival Theatre, Malvern – until 4th February 2023
Reviewed by Courie Amado Juneau
5*****
Agatha Christie is like visiting an old friend. I thoroughly enjoyed The Mousetrap years ago in London, so a rare chance to see it’s 70th Anniversary Tour (I know!) in Malvern, was too good to pass up.
The play is set in a newly opened guest house welcoming its first visitors. A sumptuous set greets us, setting the period and mood perfectly. It looked good enough to be on film, let alone the stage! Our leading lady Joelle Dyson (playing Mollie Ralston, half owner of said establishment) enters and takes off her dark coat, light scarf and soft felt hat just as a radio announces that the police are looking for someone seen fleeing from a local murder scene wearing a dark overcoat, light scarf and soft felt hat. Timed to perfection by Ms Dyson we are drawn to these items at each mention, immediately putting her under suspicion. This device is used wittily several times, as every person visiting is wearing almost identical garments.
We are given an interesting range of suspicious characters: the sinister foreigner, the respectable general, a disagreeable old lady, an excitable young man, a mysterious and evasive young lady, a recently married couple in whose residence the murderous fun unfolds and also, of course, the investigating police officer (where would Poirot have been without Japp?).
Much of the audience attention would have rightly been on the two Marquee names: Todd Carty (Major Metcalf) and Gwyneth Strong (Mrs Boyle) and they did shine as expected. But don’t take your eyes of the rest of this exceptionally talented cast, all stars in their own right who did an outstanding job. I will make special mention of Elliot Clay (playing Christopher Wren with childlike abandon) and Kieran Brown (playing Mr Paravicini, at once both hissable and charmingly seductive). I hope both roles were as much fun to play as they were to watch.
Having everyone snowed in is a device Agatha used on a number of occasions – most notably in Murder On The Orient Express – and I can see why. It creates a palpable tension. Couple this with fantastic acting and you have a surefire winner. Slowly but surely the house becomes ever more cut off, just like the phone … and once the second murder occurs the suspicion and finger pointing ramps up several notches
It’s easy to forget that Christie pieces are period dramas. As such, they often fall into several traps; they can be quaint, they can have staid acting (everyone awfully plummy with some “cor-blimey” thrown in for “the help”) or they can be melodramatic. Tonight’s production was none of these. It was perfectly paced and beautifully acted with a natural ease and suspenseful drama that does all concerned in the production a great deal of credit. In fact I would say it was honed to perfection!
I could go on about how good tonight’s performance was but would run out of superlatives. I will confine myself to advising you not to miss this opportunity to catch this most famous show locally. If you see nothing else this Wintry season, see this.