Appointment with Death

NOThe origins for the play date back to 1938 with legendary British mystery writer Dame Agatha Christie adapting the play for the stage in 1945. This transformed her 1938 Hercule Poirot novel, Appointment with Death, into a taut three-act crime drama. Over time the characters have changed in various ways as has the identity of the murderer .The essential ingredients however for this most intriguing whodunit  have been retained as are the 2 locations in which the play is set.

What has not changed is the identity of the victim who is completely central to the plot of course.

A cosmopolitan cast of characters are haunting the lounge of the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem. In great prominence is the most overbearing and quite sinister Mrs Ada Caroline Boynton, played to loathsome perfection by Glynis Smith. Mrs. Boynton absolutely terrorises her three grown stepchildren — Lennox (Glyn Diggett), Raymond (Matthew Jeffrey), two boys who just cannot cut their stepmother’s apron strings. Ginevra (Kayleigh Barker) is good as the emotionally fragile stepdaughter — just one blink away from a messy breakdown.  Nadine (Katie Ingram)  is an unhappily married woman with an insufferable mother-in-law, who barely suppresses her outrage in order to keep her marriage to Lennox intact. This seeming devoted and united family is in fact neither 

Outside this strange family are two highly observant Physicians French Dr. Theodore Gerard (Paul Belamy) and British young practitioner Dr. Sarah King (Hetty Bentley) in their extremely well delivered accents and portrayal of their respective roles. Lady Westholme (Melanie Brown) frequently strutts across the stage, the snobbish, smugly superior, and supremely self-centred and politically ambitious character who cannot help but observe Mrs. Boynton’s heartless bullying of anyone who has the misfortune to encounter her presence.

Miss Pryce (Barbara Wright) a British spinster in a most authentic welsh accent is on a solo tour of the Holy Land; and Alderman Higgs (Alan Wollaston) dressed in an outrageously loud checked suit even in the heat of Petra, in broad Lancashire dialect is a highly amusing minor politician seeking even higher office is on vacation and immediately attracts the wrath of Lady Westholme by occupying and refusing to give up the first-floor room that she thought she had reserved for herself. Jefferson Cope (Ian Thompson) is charming as the lovelorn American who is desperately is trying to convince Nadine Boynton to abandon the wishy-washy boy she married and almost wins  

In the role of Clerk/Bedouin a very well dressed “Jack of All Trades” Ian Crowe is excellent. Providing an enormous amount of humour is the long suffering Dragoman (Keith Barrell) - (i.e., an Arab interpreter and guide), whom Lady Westholme  insists on calling Mohammad, completely oblivious to his actual religion (Christian) and often-repeated but never acknowledged given name (Aisha).  Completing this hugely appealing cast is Colonel Carbery (Alan Humphries) dynamic head of the Trans-Jordanian police, who rushes to the Travellers Camp to investigate the murder — or was it! Or was it accidental death or death by natural causes? — of mean old Mrs. Boynton.

This was a debut production in the Director’s chair for Matthew Jeffrey who rose to the challenge in a accomplished manner including most adeptly taking part in the play. Behind the scenes the team are to be congratulated on a first class set truly depicting the Hotel Lounge including the suggestion of having an elevator and the quite different Travellers Camp at Petra. Costumes too were of a high quality.

The mystery plots of Agatha Christie often need that special ingredient to be entertaining and capture the audience. This one did just that! 

Ian G Cox Regional Representative - Worcestershire East (District 12)

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