Poirot play’s popularity a bit of a mystery

BLACK COFFEE

(Opera House, Manchester, to Saturday)

Agatha Christie’s early and only play featuring Hercule Poirot has been getting fairly good reviews on its long national tour, but for the life of me I can’t see why.


That the plot will be short on character — never a Christie strong point — is a given; as is the likelihood the story that seemed bright and fascinatingly complex in 1930 is today a quaint period piece.

We are at a country house gathering and scientist Sir Claud (Ric Recate) has developed a new, high-powered explosive, the formula for which has gone missing.

When he turns out the lights in the locked room so the culprit can return it, no questions asked, the lights come up again and he has been poisoned. Very unsporting.

Poirot (Jason Durr) is soon on the scene and sorting the murderous wheat from the innocent chaff, and prime candidate for the noose initially seems to be Johnny Foreigner Dr Carelli (Gary Mavers). Of course that’s a red herring, as is any involvement of Lucia, daughter in law of the dead man, and not just there for the afternoon cake.

Then you have the slightly mad Caroline Amory (Deborah Grant) who acts unlike any country house grand dame I’ve ever seen in drama, ebullient and outgoing.

The trouble is the whole thing moves at the pace of a Belgian snail. Two 10-minute intervals are fairly pointless and there’s a long third act that seems to consist mainly of pauses.

Jason Durr is a highly affected Poirot. Tall and slim, he shuffles like a penguin with his arms apparently glued by his sides and injects a little too much humour into the OCD detective without much effect.

Similarly, Hastings (Robin McCallum) beams like a schoolboy rather than a seasoned detective at the attentions of Amory’s niece Barbara (Felicity Houlbrooke).

So what else might the production have going for it? Certainly the set in Bill Kenwright’s Christie Company production is rather nice, an art deco tribute with big windows, lots of fake marble and period detailing.

Costumes and general character appearance are good too; the cast could be straight out of the Thirties. The trouble is, so is the play, and like other Christie plays, it doesn’t travel in time well...