A Murder is Announced

A Murder is Announced (Agatha Christie adapted by Leslie Darbon) - 15th to 17th November 2007

Everyone loves a good murder and everyone knows that no one does it better than Agatha Christie. It assures a good audience and a positive response, and it peoples the stage with an intriguing collection of characters, some of whom are drawn with surprising depth and dimension. This play, therefore, could only be a winner, especially with the experienced and stylish company assembled for the occasion by Wymondham Players.

Annie Elffers’s assured and detailed direction guaranteed a sturdy beginning and sustained a cracking pace throughout, with twists of the plot delivered with the required mixture of diffidence and panache. The humour embedded in this adaptation was subtly handled and kept the audience amused as well as intrigued. And the final denouement, depending heavily on the revealing of true identities, and the quirks of fate which brought this particular collection of characters together, brought the story to a highly satisfying, and in many ways moving, conclusion.

In a generally first-rate cast, Tabi Paternoster accomplished the main role of Letitita (Charlotte) Blacklock with great style and confidence, and her eventual demise was all the more moving for the sympathetic character she had essayed to portray from the beginning. The excellent Barbara Tilley gave a gentle and convincing portrayal as Dora Bunner, now showing intimations of dementia, and Kar Oakley once more demonstrated her assured stagecraft and finely modulated voice in the role of Philippa. Georgette Vale swept through the action like a white tornado, as the Eastern European home help, and provided a huge injection of fun into the proceedings. Alison Burton and Paul Goldsmith gave an excellent account of the younger members of the household and the explanation of their real identities was all the more effective on this account.

Which brings us to the sleuths! The dependable and experienced Alan Carpenter gave us a much more attractive Inspector than we often meet in Christie, sympathetic in his strength of character, yet trailing rather too far behind his ageing spinster counterpart, the inimitable Miss Marple, in solving the complexities of crime. The talented Heather Carpenter, indeed, was the Miss Marple we all think we know, precise, dapper, sprightly for her age and sharp as a new pin. Heather’s delightful, if at times somewhat over-enunciated, performance was the play’s lynchpin, and won the hearts of the audience from beginning to end.

Louis Betts’s smart and practical stage setting did much to ensure the play’s success, as did Jane Fisher’s splendid costumes. Annie Elffers, her cast and team, therefore, deserve highest praise for maintaining the high standard of amateur theatre for the good folk of Wymondham, and beyond.