Go Back for Murder (Venue Cymru, Llandudno)

Archive: This review was first published on November 5, 2013 by the Daily Post

Agatha Christie's Go Back for Murder has had a chequered history, first emerging as a novel in 1942 entitled Murder in Retrospect, and later becoming more commonly known as Five Little Pigs.

The story originally featured Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as the sleuth, but she later adapted the novel for the stage as Go Back for Murder, editing out Poirot and replacing him with a young lawyer called Justin Fogg.

Act 1 of this Agatha Christie Theatre Company production is shamelessly pedestrian and formulaic. Carla Le Marchant (Sophie Ward) decides to investigate the murder of her father, for which his wife was jailed 16 years ago, when she receives a letter from her dying mother saying she was innocent of the crime.

It is then up to her, in association with Fogg (a likeable Ben Nealon), to work out whodunit based solely upon the faded testimonies of five prime suspects.

The first Act sees Carla chat routinely to each suspect before inviting them all to the scene of the crime to re-enact the poisoning.

Act 2 is far more interesting as the characters get to interact, and in many ways Act 1 simply isn't needed at all. However, Christie wrote the play purposefully with this distinct narrative structure, so this can hardly be ignored, especially by a theatre company who remain faithful to the novelist's work.

The "five little pigs" consist of brothers Philip and Meredith Blake, teenager Angela Warren, housekeeper Miss Williams and victim Amyas's fancy woman Elsa Greer. You'll be hard pressed to like many of these characters, as they are written or portrayed either as two-dimensional or hysterical. Liza Goddard's Miss Williams is the most three-dimensional of the bunch, and her testimony with Carla in Act 1 is laced with rewarding comedy.

Reliably genial as Philip is Drop the Dead Donkey's Robert Duncan, while Georgia Neville gives a spirited stage debut as young Angela.

As for Lysette Anthony's turn as Lady Greer, it really does depend on whether you accept her performance choice as entertaining or, shall I say, eccentric. I know which I'd choose.

Centre stage is Sophie Ward playing both Carla and her mother Caroline in flashback. She is most convincing as the latter, but gives a charming performance as Carla and sports a great 1960s wardrobe.

Go Back for Murder is anything but energetic. It's talky and formulaic, but that is pretty much what made Agatha Christie successful: her reliability with a yarn and her knack of sketching a myriad of characters in a short space of time.

But without a shadow of a doubt, this would be better with Poirot back on the beat.

The stats

Writer: Agatha Christie

Director: Joe Harmston

Cast: Liza Goddard (Miss Williams); Sophie Ward (Carla Crale); Robert Duncan (Phillip Blake); Gary Mavers (Amyas Crale); Lysette Anthony (Elsa Greer); Ben Nealon (Justin Fogg); Anthony Edridge (Meredith Blake); Sammy Andrews (Angela Warren); Mark Lisseman (Turnball)

Performed at Venue Cymru, Llandudno, November 4 to 9, 2013 (part of a Bill Kenwright Productions tour). Performance reviewed: November 4, 2013.

Links

Go Back for Murder on Venue Cymru website (retrieved Jan 12, 2015)

Go Back for Murder on Bill Kenwright website (retrieved Jan 12, 2015)

Five Little Pigs on Wikipedia (retrieved Jan 12, 2015)

Gary Mavers interviewed for LLTV in November 2013 (retrieved Jan 12, 2015)