King's Theatre,
Edinburgh
Three stars
Now that actor David
Suchet has completed his stint in the title role of Agatha Christie's
Belgian detective Hercule Poirot on TV, if the powers that be ever
consider repeating the exercise, they could do worse than put Robert
Powell behind the master sleuth's inscrutable moustache. In the
Agatha Christie Theatre Company's touring look at the grand mistress
of crime's first ever play, Powell plays Poirot with a raised eyebrow
and a deadly sense of fun that works a treat.
When top-notch
physicist Sir Claud Amory is murdered in a house full of guests where
he has also invited Poirot to reveal who stole his secret formula, a
labyrinthine world of blackmail and international spy rings is
uncovered, even as those gathered pass the incriminating after dinner
coffee cups around quicker than a magician. Written and set twelve
years after World War One, the country-house conspiracy the play
exposes may come equipped with impeccable manners, but foreigners
still aren't trusted, leaving the Italian Dr Carelli and Amory's
daughter-in-law Lucia as prime suspects.
Powell's Poirot, like
his creator, is a moralist, albeit one with serious OCD, and even
though much of Joe Harmston's production is played in inverted
commas, there's always a sense that Poirot is on the side of the good
guys. This is the case even as Poirot's comment to his sidekick
Hastings that “This is not an ordinary human crime. This is drama,”
lends things a meta-theatrical lilt. When Olivia Mace's Lucia does
what she has to with the formula, it's an act of destruction which,
temporarily at least, might just have saved the world.
The Herald, March 26th 2014
ends
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