Spider’s Web is Agatha Christie at her very best; a ripping “who dunnit” with overtones of farce to amuse you whilst solving the clues. The play has every element a crime thriller should, a beautiful young girl, elderly guardian, boring husband, handsome suitor, cranky butler and of course a body in the library. Well, if not exactly in the library – it does get to move about a bit – but still the requisite body. Set in the early 1950s the story centres on Clarissa, the second wife of Henry Hailsham Brown an upright and respected diplomat who finds his young wife’s invention of fanciful tales to alleviate her boredom of stuffy life in the country quite charming, unaware of the trouble it will bring.
Melanie Gutteridge plays Clarissa with a bubbly panache and you can see why she can twist all the men around her little finger. Her guardian Sir Rowland Delahaye portrayed by Bruce Montague with great gravitas, opens the play doing a blind port tasting with his gruff old friend Hugo Birch (Robert Duncan). After much deliberation wavering between lofty vintages and the stuff you jug hares with they discover it is all the same, yet another of Clarissa’s tricks. Young Mr Jeremy Warrender flirts with Clarissa and who could resist him in his fetching Fair Isle jumper? Ben Nealon makes him a lightweight character and you would never guess he has a hidden agenda.
When at last an inspector calls so to speak, he does so in the shape of the much loved actor Denis Lill as Inspector Lord who together with his assistant, the redoubtable Constable Jones, begins to unravel the mystery. Constable Jones doesn’t get much to say but Mark Rose’s wonderful Welsh accent adds a lot to the humour and his performance whilst listening to (and gullibly believing) Clarissa’s version of the events is very funny.
I don’t want to say too much more as it would be unthinkable to give away the plot, fine tuned as it is like the title, a spider web of intrigue, lies and deceit with as always money at its root. Catherine Shipton as Mildred Peake deserves a mention for her very funny caricature of the lady gardener, all boots and booming voice and Michael Gabe as Elgin the butler for his oily obsequiousness which makes you think he probably did do it! If you want to know what happens, you must go and see it – it’s an excellent and entertaining performance all round.
Jacquie Vowles