Chris's Eden Court Blog: July 2017

I went to see A Murder Is Announced last night, and it was brilliant.

The Plot

A local newspaper article "announces" that a murder will take place at Little Paddocks at 6.30 that evening. Miss Letitia Blacklock, owner of Little Paddocks, who lives with her old friend Dora "Bunny" Bunner, young cousins Patrick and Julia Simmons, who are brother and sister, and Phillipa Haymes,who works at a local garden, dismisses the article as a joke, although Mitzi, a refugee maid, thinks that the secret police from her country are coming to kill her, so decides to lock herself in her room when the time comes. Miss Marple comes by, and advises caution.

That evening, at Miss Swettenham and her son, Edmund, drops by. Bunny is nervous while Patrick and Julia are excited. The clock chips the time, the lights go out, then a man enters with a torch and tells everyone to put their hands up, then a gun goes off (catching the audience by surprise for those who may have not known the story beforehand). When the lights come back on, Miss Blacklock had been shot in the ear, and the man in the floor. Then Miss Marple appears again, passing by again, and tells everyone that the man is called Rudi Scherz, a Swiss receptionist at The Royal Spa Hotel from town, and that he is dead.

It looks like Rudi Scherz was the one behind the whole thing and he tried an attempted murder of Miss Blacklock, before killing himself. The only problem is that Miss Blacklock can't think of why anyone would want to kill her when asked by Inspector Craddock. When Miss Marple helps out in the conversion, it turns out that Miss Blacklock was an heiress for a huge amount of money after being a secretary to a rich financier many years ago, and will only heritage after the death of the financier's widow. If she dies before the widow, the only heirs after that will the financier's sister's children Pip and Emma. Further talks with Miss Marple reveals that if Rudi Scherz had been the shooter, he'd have to fuse the lights, lock Mitzi in her room, then open the living room door while holding the torch is one hand and the gun in the other, meaning that somebody else fired the gun. Miss Marple and the inspector finds a second door (from a time with the room was two rooms) that it is hardly used with oiled hinges.

Later while talking with Miss Marple, Bunny talks of the past such as knowing Miss Blacklock and he sister Charlotte, who she nicknamed "Letty" and "Lotty", and how Miss Blacklock offered her a place to stay. But she can get confused, she was sure that a lamp near where Miss Blacklock stood as a shepherd, not a shepherdess, as the lamp was of a pair. Inspector Craddock is puzzled of how he has record of Phillipa Haymes' marriage, birth of her child and death of her husband in the war, but no record of her prior of her marriage, and is interested that Mrs Swettenham's deceased husband was a diplomat near Switzerland.

The day after is Bunny's birthday so everyone gives Bunny a birthday party. Bunny has had a headache and took some of Miss Blacklock's pills to help before joining the party. Just as the birthday cake is served, Bunny dies.

Inspector Craddock is convinced that somebody is attempting to murder Miss Blacklock, while noticing lipstick on Patrick's collar and matches the lipstick Julia uses. Miss Marple helps the house's owner with her loss. Inspector Craddock asks if there are photos of Pip and Emma's parents, but while Miss Blacklock can find the album, the photos are gone. Inspector Craddock and Miss Marple, while Miss Blacklock tries to keep Mitzi in the house, finds and read some old letters between Miss Blacklock and her sister Charlotte, and Miss Marple is curious of Charlotte. After a few more words with the owners the two leave, just as Miss Blacklock gets a letter from Julia, this forces Julia to reveal herself as Emma.

That evening, everyone is brought together again. The inspector questions everyone and gets a call saying the Miss Marple has gone missing. Mitzi enters and tells how she saw Miss Blacklock as the shooter through her room's keyhole. When the inspector accuses Edmund as Pip (under the belief that Pip is a boy), Phillipa reveals herself to be Pip and Emma's sister, both of whom came to Chipping Cleghorn looking to see if there was any money from her mother's family after their parents split up and each took one of the girls with them. When the inspector accuses Edmund further, he runs for it. Everyone leaves, thinking it's all over, leaving Miss Blacklock with Mitzi, who attempts to blackmail her mistress, who reveals that Mitzi couldn't have seen what happened, she the key was in the keyhole.

When Miss Blacklock is alone, she hears Bunny's voice, and Miss Blacklock says that she's sorry. Then Miss Marple enters, and reveals that Miss Blacklock was the murderer. Miss Blacklock fused the lights by dropping water on the lamp's wires, and in the darkness shot Rudi Scherz. To give the impression that she had been shot, she fired the gun where she was last seen before she nicked her ear loop with scissors, casing it to bleed. She then changed her pill's bottles, and killed her friend Bunny. After explain how the murders took place, Miss Marple revealed the motive. Miss Letitia Blacklock is really Miss Charlotte Blacklock, who took her sister's place after she died aboard in Switzerland, where they met Rudi Scherz. Charlotte had a disfigurement on her neck and doctors in Switzerland had worked out how to remove the disfigurement, but while the operation was successful, it had left a scar on her neck, which she hid by wearing a necklace of pearls. It was while they were in Switzerland, that Letitia died. Knowing that her sister was an heiress, and that few people had seen either sister in a while, Charlotte took her sister's identity in hope of getting the money. She invited Bunny to stay out of loneliness, but so realised that Bunny was her undoing. Then she bumped into Rudi Scherz, who worked at the hospital in Switzerland where Charlotte had her operation, this meant that he would have known her as Charlotte, not Letitia as she has been claiming, and Miss Blacklock feared that if he later found out the truth, he'd blackmail her, so she killed him to ensure his silence. Bunny was killed because she got muddled and said too much. Miss Blacklock is arrested and Inspector Craddock thanks Miss Marple for her help.

Review

A few characters were edited out, such as a retired colonel, who owned the gun that was used as the murder weapon, and his wife. Another couple of characters edited out were two ladies who lived nearby and attempted to reenact the first murder, and one of them was later murdered for giving a verbal clue of the killer. All this was done so the play could be performed in the living room of the Little Paddocks, which was good very well.

Although, the programme said that Miss Marple was to be played by Doctor Who actress Louise Jameson, she wasn't there so somebody else played Miss Marple, but it all worked the same.

I think that it was Mitri, the maid, played by Lydia Piechowiak, who provides most of the comic relief, at one point, after Bunny's death (the second murder), she enters with a suitcase and announces to Miss Blacklock, "I give you the sack! I go!" The play had many laughs.

Another comical piece was when while Inspector Craddock is talking to Miss Blacklock, Miss Marple comes in through the door with a torch and gun. The inspector then makes a grab for the gun, only to told by Miss Marple, that it's only a toy gun she's using to reconstruct the events of the first murder.

I'm sure that most of who came to see the show might not have known the story, as between scenes and during the interval, and here and there during the scenes, I could hear the audience whispering who was the murderer. I wonder how many got it right.

I hope that there's more performances like this one to come.

I hope that you will come, see and enjoy at Eden Court.

Chris's Eden Court Blog

Thursday 20 July 2017

Review of A Murder Is Announced

Tuesday 4 July 2017

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