New job - theatre reviews
I’ve just started doing theatre reviews for a great organisation called Northern Arts Reviews which has the aim of helping to promote theatre across the North of the Country. I’m really looking forward to it and have just cut my teeth on this Agatha Christie play. More to come in the coming months.
REVIEW OF MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
THEATRE ROYAL, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
Five stars *****
This play was one of the best productions I’ve seen at the theatre, ever.
The enormous success of it is even more impressive when you realise the story, as with so much of Agatha Christie’s work, has been told so many times since it was published in 1934. This performance felt fresh and was spell-binding throughout.
It starts with a spine-tingling scene at the station, gloomy lighting and a wisp of smoke to represent the train’s steam. The main characters are pictured briefly, gathered up and standing in formation, swaying, as if already in their carriage - a taste of what was to come.
Possibly because of the lighting and very little stage sound, the atmosphere felt intense straight away and the audience was absolutely rapt. You couldn’t hear a pin drop.
The set design by Mike Britton worked really well and we meet the characters in more detail in a dining room as the tables move in circles, allowing each one to be centre stage in turn. We were able to eavesdrop, as does Hercule Poirot, very well played by Michael Maloney, on all their private lives, or what they decide to share to others. The secret and public personae of Agatha Christie characters often keep you guessing and the larger-than-life personalities are no exception here.
I wont spoil any of the plot points but right from the outset there is a breadcrumb trail of clues which make you think and then they build up to more than coincidences as any good who-done-it should.
Creating a version of the Orient Express in the middle of a theatre stage was going to be a challenge and I was intrigued to see how it was going to be achieved.
The design of Orient Express itself and how the train sets were used, was masterful. I loved the look of it with all the Art Deco splendour expected for a Poirot mystery.
There was an element of a Carry On farce with the use of the carriages sliding doors, which lightened the tone nicely, before it all became grisly.
The whole cast were great but I particularly enjoyed the performance of Christine Kavanagh as Helen Hubbard, and Simon Cotton, as Samuel Ratchett, which ramped the tension up before the murder.
As Poirot unpicks the clues from the action and drama, the audience is carried along. The train is miles from anywhere, caught in a snowdrift with a dead body, a murderer and no means of communication. Even from this century’s viewpoint you can relate to the feeling of panic and claustrophobia.
I enjoyed the shifting tone of the production as there was a tense atmosphere for most of it but also great humour at times. The running gag about saying Poirot was French and being corrected that he was actually Belgian worked well.
There were also a good few one-liners which gave the audience a laugh and nicely shifted the mood for a short while, before ramping up the sense of menace again.
The finale and the revelation of who had done it was excellent. Coincidentally I had seen both films and had no recollection of what the conclusion was, so that announcement was a great surprise to me.
David Suchet as Poirot was always going to be a hard act to follow but Michael Maloney’s performance captured a detective who was charming and able to laugh at his own pomposity. When a waiter doesn’t recognise him but talked about the famous Poiret it was good fun.
I saw the director Lucy Bailey’s And Then There Were None, another Christie adaption, last year and her vision for this play is delivered just as beautifully as that show.
This is a fantastic piece of theatre which entertains but also makes you think about good and evil, retribution and how far ordinary people could go for revenge.