The Hollow

This talented group, better known for their presentation of musicals, has branched out recently into comedies and straight plays. ‘The Hollow’ by Agatha Christie was my first experience of this new string to their bow and I was most impressed.

The play premiered in 1951 and is very much of its time, with guests arriving at The Hollow for a country house weekend. However the plot still holds together well so that by the interval, the murder has been committed and virtually everyone has been given a motive and the opportunity. It was interesting during the interval listening to people theorising about possible perpetrators. This confirmed that the crisp direction and convincing acting had people hooked and they couldn’t wait to find out ‘whodunnit’.

Director Jonathan Redwood had a strong cast to work with. Each member developed their own character well – even those with only brief appearances on stage, but the star for me was Marina Voak as Lady Lucy Angkatell. She was delightfully dotty, as the character demands, but never overplayed it and was always believable and likeable. Ben Lister was the perfect foil as her husband Sir Henry Angkatell, slightly dithering but with infinite patience for his wife’s forgetfulness.

Graeme Clements played the thoroughly unlikeable lothario John Cristow to perfection. I was amazed to find this was his third performance of the day, having already taken part in ‘James and the Giant Peach’ twice, earlier in the day. Alison Dea gave a great potrayal of his downtrodden wife Gerda, with no self-confidence, always getting things wrong. She transformed into a much more confident and intelligent person at the end when revealed as the killer.

Marie Ridley made the most of her role as the vampish actress Veronica Craye, every inch the glamourous self-centred film star. Her jaw-dropping entrance into the dinner party was worthy of Joan Collins in Dynasty. Zara Newbury-Skinner was equally strong, but more modest as Henrietta Angkatell, loved by her cousin Edward (Jonathan Redwood). Nick Scovell was a brisk and competent Inspector Colquhoun, who claims to have deduced Gerda’s guilt but is saved from having to prove it in court by Gerda deliberately consuming the poisoned sherry.

An excellent set made full use of the formidable width of the stage with good quality furniture and props, most notably the superb picture of ‘dear Ainswick’. Costumes were generally good too, although some did stand out as being more recent than the 1950s. Sound and lighting were courtesy of the Ferneham Hall technicians; the lighting was most effective with a good thunder storm and while sound quality was mostly crystal clear, there were a surprising number (considering it was the last performance) of missed mic cues and nearly inaudible sound effects.

This was a pacey and confident production of a well-liked murder mystery play. It kept the audience enthralled and entertained throughout and demonstrated that this company’s musical skills are well backed up by its acting abilities.

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