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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.

Written by Mark O’Rowe. Flight Path Theatre. 16 Aug – 2 Sep, 2023.

Mark O’Rowe’s The Approach became something of a Covid lock down hit when it was streamed live from Dublin. A circular tale of three women, having three conversations that mimic and loop around each other to slowly reveal the inner lives of each. The original production, directed by O’Rowe himself, was a sharp and funny hour-long character study that reportedly worked just as well on a laptop screen as it did live. It’s now being staged at Flight Path Theatre with three terrific actresses Linda Nicholls-Gidley, Lindsey Chapman and Sarah Jane Starr.

There is little action in The Approach, almost completely devoid of physical movement or props. The staging is simply a table with two chairs and some judiciously placed mirrors on the walls, the focus is solely on the performances. As the three Irish women Anna, Cora and Denise talk, in differently paired conversations, the audience begins to unravel the interwoven relationships, history and resentments lurking underneath the seemingly everyday chat.

It’s in the subtleties that The Approach really delivers. The cadence and rhythm of speech, the micro-expressions that tell the truth when the actual words are seemingly banal. It’s in the inconsistencies of repeated stories and the little white lies that the big shifts happen. O’Rowe can craft dialogue that feels authentic while also bringing out everyday comedy from the subjects and this cast know how to deliver it without forcing the matter. They’re each wonderfully human performances. 

However by the 50 minute mark (of this 70ish minute play) I was starting to feel frustrated by how static it was. What started off as an interesting ‘hang out’ with these all-too-realistic characters was starting to drag. While the humour kept me laughing and the revelations kept me engaged, the gaps between these moments started to feel elongated. I chalk it up to pacing (running around 10 minutes longer than the original seems to suggest there is some air in the delivery that can be let out – the kind of change that will naturally happen over the course of the run), and to the minimal staging.

O’Rowe’s script is multilayered and rewarding, and the cast, under the direction of Deborah Jones, keep it flowing. As a showcase for Nicholls-Gidley, Chapman and Starr, The Approach succeeds admirably, delivering funny, flawed women that feel real in every sense.