
The cast included: David Bowen, Rachel Logan, Andrew Dowbiggin, Adam Elms, and Clive Moore. The production was staged in the city's council chambers (using most of the building and played in-the-round) and was directed by Samuel Wood. According to reports, it was always Christie's wish to see the play in a site-specific location. To celebrate the world premiere, there was a Q&A with the director and cast following the opening night performance. In April 2014, the first ever site-specific production of the play opened at York Guildhall from York-based company, Theatre Mill, and was fully supported by Agatha Christie Ltd. The play was directed by Joe Harmston, and the set designer was Simon Scullion. Ralph Leonard as Plain-Clothes DetectiveĪs with the London production, Dawn Steinkamp was a pseudonym.Ģ010 Agatha Christie Theatre Company production.The play ran for 645 performances, closing on 30 June 1956. Sullivan and Jessel both won Tony Awards for their roles. The finish is done with such dedicated conviction, such patent plausibility, such respect for the medium as a thing of beauty that you are apt to find yourself gasping out loud." The Times reported on the success of the production in its issue of 23 December 1954 when they quoted a review in the New York Herald Tribune which said that the play should be, "A walloping success. Patricia Jessel was the only member of the cast to transfer from the London production. It was produced by Gilbert Miller and Peter Saunders. The play opened in America at Henry Miller's Theatre, New York on 16 December 1954. Therefore, although credited, Rosemary Wallace was a pseudonym used to preserve the play's ending. The character of The Other Woman was, as the play revealed Romaine in disguise, and played by Jessel. Iris Fraser Foss as Second Member of the Jury.Lauderdale Beckett as First Member of the Jury.Kenn Kennedy as Plain-Clothes Detective/Third Member of the Jury.Milton Rosmer as Mr Mayhew, a solicitor.Walter Horsbrugh as Carter, Sir Wilfrid's Chief Clerk/Alderman.Rosalie Westwater as Greta, typist to Sir Wilfrid.Nevertheless, Hope-Wallace did admit that the opening night was, "a great success" and stated that the play presented a, "well-made, humorous, exciting case". This is satisfying, but it makes criticism almost impossible first, one must not give away the clue and second, one must reconsider whether those witnesses who seemed the most plausible were not, in fact, less good players than those who seemed somehow not quite 'in character'". We nod approvingly, at which moment Mrs Christie says in effect "Oh, so you thought that did you?" and with an unforeseen twist of the cards lets us see how wrong we were. Philip Hope-Wallace in The Guardian's issue of 30 October 1953 said of the ending, "Justice has been done and has been seen to be done. Whether she is snake in the grass or butterfly on the wheel playgoers must find out for themselves. To these are added a considerable and ingenious appendix the jury's verdict is only the beginning of a story that has as many twists as a pigtail." He summed up with a comment on the performance of Patricia Jessel who, "takes the title-part with cool efficiency. Ivor Brown of The Observer said in the issue of 1 November 1953 that the play had, "all the usual advantages of Counsel in conflict, agonised outbreak in the dock, and back-answers from the witness-box. It is only then that the accomplished thriller writer shows her real hand."
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A timely intervention of a woman of the streets offering new evidence seems precisely what the trial needs and when it is resumed the evidence brings it triumphantly to a satisfying conclusion. The greatest praise was reserved for the climax "Mrs Christie has by this time got the audience in her pocket. She takes us now into the Old Bailey during an exciting trial for murder, now into chambers where the human reactions of the lawyers engaged in the case may be studied and when the trial is over and there seems no more to be said, she swiftly ravels again the skein which the law has confidently unravelled and leaves herself with a denouement which is at once surprising and credible." The reviewer outlined the basics of the plot, commenting that Patricia Jessel's performance in the dock was "cold-blooded" and that she "makes a clear-cut image of hatred releasing itself suddenly from inhibitions which have become intolerable" and that Derek Blomfield was "equally good". The Times of 29 October 1953 was enthusiastic in its praise stating, "The author has two ends in view, and she attains them both. 3 2010 Agatha Christie Theatre Company production.
