GEOFFREY SHRYHANE: Wigan Little Theatre Agatha Christie review
The writer with poison in her pen is a magnificent literary institution. And as the years go by, her stories endure.
So off we go to Wigan Little Theatre, who have chosen Christie’s Towards Zero for their second enthralling play of the new season.
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Hide AdThe pandemic saw the theatre “dark” for two years. So little wonder whole team have been welcomed back with warm enthusiasm.
Towards Zero is a perfect choice for the cold, dark nights of March.
When a house party gathers at Gull’s Point, the seaside home of Lady Tressilian, Neville Strange finds himself caught between his first wife Audrey, and his new wife Kay..
The usual satisfying Christie plot leads up a warren of back streets and then fools us up to the very last “reveal all” scene.
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Hide AdBill Collins – known as the theatre’s top panto dame – takes the director’s chair with consummate ease, and is rewarded with a thoroughbred cast of 11 – a true and entertaining mix, at the centre of which has love and hate rearing their ever ugly heads.
As a great Christie fan – long ago I ploughed my way through 22 Agatha blockbusters. But Towards Zero escaped me. In retrospect I realise that was a shame because it turns out to be superb.
In this excellent stage version, the pace is allowed to build and when all is revealed, I reckon most members of the audience had been well and truly fooled.
Towards Zero runs at WLT until March 19.