The Hollow (Genesian Theatre) ★★★

Written by Agatha Christie. Genesian Theatre Company. 19 Aug – 23 Sep, 2023.

After seeing both The Mousetrap and Witness for the Prosecution in the last year, I’ve been keen to see more of Agatha Christie’s plays. The Hollow is an adaptation of the Hercule Poirot novel of the same name, sans Poirot – a classic “drawing room murder/mystery”, filled with peculiar characters, motives galore and last minute reveals. All pretty standard Christie, and if you’re fan of that, as I am, you’ll enjoy her knack for printing characters quickly and poking fun at the English.

Midge Harvey (Cariad Weitnauer) loves Edward Angkatell (Tom Southwell), but Edward is in love with his cousin Henrietta (Jess Davis), who’s having an affair with Dr John Cristow (Chad Traupmann), who is married to the sweet Gerda (Emily Smith), but Cristow’s famous former fiancé, the film star Veronica Craye (Alannah Robertson) has suddenly come back to claim him. It’s enough to throw the weekend plans of Lady Angkatell (Penny Day) into disarray, if she can just remember why she’s walking around holding a lobster. Thankfully Lord Angkatell (Vincent O’Neill) has been teaching them how to handle a gun correctly down at his shooting range. You wouldn’t want someone to end up dead… well, not by accident anyway.

The thing this basic synopsis misses is the way Christie has created quintessentially quirky and untrustworthy characters to fill each role. Penny Day is wonderful as the dotty and morally ambivalent Lady Angkatell who is seemingly delighted to have a murder in the house. The very English way in which the household treats Gerda, who was found holding the pistol that presumably shot her husband, is both backstabbingly cold and unfailingly polite. 

Jess Davis gives the best performance of the night as Henrietta, a self-assured woman who fits neatly in the “modern world” of mid-century England. She is well matched by Emily Smith’s Gerda, who manages to avoid cliches in the role of ‘frumpy wife’. Director Molly Haddon keeps the action moving constantly (much needed in a one-set play), and choreographs the final unspoken action of the third act with clarity – revelations are visually delivered without feeling force fed to the audience. Unfortunately not all the performances are on the same level, with some actors struggling to infuse the rather old-school dialogue with humanity. The roles range from well acted to rather hammy. 

The real murderer here is the running time. At 2hr 30min plus interval this is a full night out and the text struggles to justify its length. The problem sadly lies in the dated writing. Characters spend a lot of time throwing out exposition or declaring their feelings in antiquated and long-winded scenes. A judicial pruning of the text with a modern sensibility would help immeasurably.

The Hollow does exactly what is says on the tin, this is a straightforward Agatha Christie murder/mystery. It’s an artefact of its time, and this production can’t escape the over-familiarity of it all, but, like the TV adaptations of Christie’s books, the goal isn’t to reinvent her work, but to present it as it is. If you want something with a more modern take, head to Hayes for the excellent Murder For Two.