THE ACE Theatre Company served up another winner with its production of Agatha Christie’s Cards on the Table at Chequer Mead last week.
The Queen of Crime has been packing theatres for decades and this enjoyable brainteaser was the perfect example of why her period whodunnits still hold their own.
Cards is typical Christie teaser in which a society host, the mysterious Shaitana, is found dead in the drawing room amongst his handful of guests, all of whom had both the motive – potential blackmail – and the means – a devilish-looking dagger – to have done away with him in full view of their fellow invitees.
As luck would have it one of the other guests at the fatal soirée is Superintendent Battle, one of the Yard’s finest, and a man not too proud to pick the brains of visiting crime novelist Mrs Oliver as he tries to unravel this seemingly impossible conundrum.
From the moment David Morgan arrived onstage as the Superintendent we felt we were in safe hands – here was a man in charge, and if anyone could get to the bottom of it, then Battle was our man with a commanding performance, a twinkle in his eye for the foibles of mankind, and the air of a chap born to wear spats.
There was an endearing performance too from Chrissie White as Mrs Oliver, and her nicely judged insights into the psyches of her fellow guests kept the audience guessing right up to the end as to whether she was really as pleasant as she appeared, or if she too concealed a murderous secret.
Dorothy Maynard, as Mrs Lorrimer, a woman whose past appeared to have caught up with her at last, gave a lovely performance, not least when she battled wits a deux with the Superintendent in a bid to appease her past and save the ingénue Miss Meredith from the hangman’s noose.
Kate Gledhill played Miss Meredith with such convincing gaucheness that her eventual attempt to murder her posh friend – the delightfully plummy Alicia Lane as Miss Dawes – was one of the more shocking moments of the plot.
So it was lucky that broad-shouldered Sam Banks, as the handsome and reckless Major Despard, was on hand to save the day – although I am sure there were female members of the audience who would have appreciated a post-river-rescue wet t-shirt scene in order to fully appreciate his chest.
But in a gripping plot which convincingly threw suspicion on each of the dinner guests in turn, it eventually transpired that it was Dr Roberts, ably played by Steve Gray, wot dunnit – although since it couldn’t be proved that he had murdered his host, he would just have to be hanged for doing away with Mrs Lorrimer instead – a welcome, if typical, Christie twist to a very satisfying puzzle.
Rock Vetriano made a successful debut as Shaitana, and was as convincing dead as he had been alive – not easy when you have to stay slumped in your armchair for half a scene. Lee Challis brought a lightness of touch to his own first time on stage with ACE playing police side kick Sergeant O’Connor, and it was good to see the return of regulars Kathy Lunn as the maid Doris, Lynne Fallowell as receptionist Miss Burgess, and Colin White in his brief but pivotal role as Constable Stevens.
On a night of storms and rain outside, it was good to be in the warm, in the dark, and a witness a murder most horrid…
Geraldine Durrant
