Review: Spider’s Web, Newcastle Theatre Royal

Jun 17 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

AND a tangled old web it is, too. I’m not sure I’d want to be the spider responsible – flies could zoom through the flaws like logic through a plot.

The action takes place in the living room of a country mansion with wood panels and oil paintings on the walls.

It’s the home of jolly young Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, hubby Henry, a Foreign Office functionary, and stepdaughter Pippa who has pigtails and a voracious appetite.

It’s 1952 and the house is full of old buffers in tweeds – and one younger buffer too.

There’s a lady gardener with a voice like a horse, a sinister butler and a secret chamber between the living room and the library.

There is also, at some point, and inevitably, a body upon which a mystery hangs.

No sign of Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. Wisely, they must have been sleuthing elsewhere at the time.

Spider’s Web was Agatha Christie’s first stab at a stage play, although some of her thrillers had been adapted before this one opened in 1954 – to run alongside The Mousetrap (amazingly, still running today).

It was written for Margaret Lockwood who fancied a bit of comedy.