by John Curran
Afternoon at the Seaside
A family afternoon on the beach culminates in the capture of a jewel thief and some unexpected revelations—and a resolve to go elsewhere for next year’s holiday.
Of the three plays in Rule of Three, Afternoon at the Seaside is the most unlikely for Agatha Christie to have written. It has been compared to a saucy seaside English postcard, set as it is entirely on a beach and involving, at one stage, a female character changing into her swimsuit onstage. The plot, for Christie, is slight and the humour is at times forced. It is definitely Christie on autopilot—but there is one surprise, representing a new variation on an old Christie theme. Ironically the notes for it are extensive, extending to almost 40 pages, albeit with a lot of repetition. There is much speculation about the naming both of the families (the aptly named Mr and Mrs Sour, described as ‘whiners’, become Mr and Mrs Crum) and the beach huts:
Sea View (Mon Repos) Wee Nook
Mrs. Montressor Mr Wills Mrs Wills Genevieve Batat
At the Seaside
Iniskillen Bide a Wee Mon Repos
Mr Sour Wilkinson Arlette
Child Mr Robbins Incognita
Mrs Sour Mrs. Robbins Yvonne
(Whiners) Wilkinson
But further into the notes there are flashes of the Queen of Crime in the unmasking, not of the villain, but of the policeman—or to be strictly accurate, the policewoman:
Read in paper—robbery at Aga Khan—emeralds/sapphires—
Beach
Mon Desir
Policewoman Alice Jones acting as vamp
Young man and his girl quarrel—another young man and they bring down deck chairs—
Some ideas are reminiscent of the Christie of old, even for this short, untypical effort. And, obviously, her ability to spin variations on a theme has not deserted her. The ‘switch of trousers’ idea has distinct echoes of ‘The Rajah’s Emerald’ from The Listerdale Mystery:
Does detective arrive—search the huts? Find emeralds?
Or does old Grubb find it in bucket?
Or child kick pile of sand—Grubb picks out emeralds
God bless my soul
Reasonable possible ideas
Or switch of trousers—Percy gets in the wrong ones
Somers (weakly and gentlemanly—really cat burglar)
Or counterfeit money
Or put into wrong hut
Does Percy get hit with beach ball
Or blackmail
The Patient
Mrs Wingfield is paralysed as a result of a fall from the balcony of her home. Her doctor has found a way to communicate with her and is about to do so in the presence of her family. But someone doesn’t want her to tell the truth of that fateful afternoon.
It is a shame that so few Christie fans are familiar with The Patient, as, in many ways, it is the essence of Christie—a closed setting, a limited family circle of suspects, a crafty distribution of suspicion; and all in 40 minutes. It also contains one of her most artfully concealed clues. Unlike the other two plays in this trilogy, it is a pure whodunit with a stunning curtain line. Yes, it is contrived (an immobilised patient communicating via a once-for-Yes-twice-for-No light switch) but so are many other detective plots, including some of her own best titles. Notes for the play appear in Notebooks 22 and 24:
The Patient
Nursing Home—Doctor and Nurse (Patient there? Or wheeled in later)
Is latter the one who has established communication—
Sales talk by Inspector—jewellery disappeared
Mrs. X badly injured—paralysed—unable to communicate—ingenious nurse pressure of fingers—apparatus with red bulb—Patient wheeled in—
Patient wheeled in—nurse by her (Bond) or interne
Questions spelled out Murder
Mirror
Bathroom
Saw someone Yes
Someone you knew Yes
Is that person in the room now Yes
Spell out the name A—B
B- Yes
Collapse reported by nurse? interne?—
Take off the mask—I know well enough who you are Curtain falls—My God—you!
Alternative end—gloves—coated in phosphorescent paint—hold up your hands—Lights out—Guilty Hands!
Even at this late stage in her theatrical career Christie was experimenting, as the last two notes above show. Incredibly, she wanted the curtain to fall, or the lights to black out, before the murderer was unmasked. This, if it had been allowed to continue, would have been the ultimate Christie twist—though the shock was to be somewhat mitigated by a recording of her own voice asking the audience whom they thought the killer was.
A sketch and notes for The Patient from Notebook 64. Note the reference to ‘S. O.S.’ the short story from The Hound of Death that, like The Patient, also features an unusual method of communication.
Not surprisingly, however, the idea was not a winner. It was abandoned after a flurry of telegrams to the author, who was abroad during the pre-London tryout in Aberdeen. With a track record of glittering theatrical success behind her, it does seem a very odd concept to have introduced; it would be like reading one of her novels and finding the last chapter missing.
Fiddlers Three 3 August 1972
It is very important that businessman Jonathan Panhacker should live until Wednesday 18th as he has made a financial arrangement with his son, Henry, to inherit £100,000 on that date. When he unexpectedly dies, the Fiddlers Three conspire to make sure he is still ‘alive’ for a few more days.
This is the last play written by Agatha Christie and the only one not to receive a West End run. After a glorious and record-breaking playwriting career, this last work was a sad curtain call. Her previous dramatic offering, Rule of Three (see above), was not particularly well received and it was ten years before she again felt tempted to try a script. Fiddlers Three is a two-act comedy thriller but, unfortunately, it has not enough of either to be a successful blend and falls between two uneasy extremes. It has a complicated history. In its first incarnation, Fiddlers Five, it premiered on 7 June 1971; the following year on 3 August a revamped version was presented as Fiddlers Three. In the intervening year Christie amalgamated some characters to reduce the number of Fiddlers.
The set-up is relatively straightforward. If Jonathan Panhacker lives until Wednesday 18th his financial arrangement with his son, Henry, to inherit £100,000 on that date will come to pass. In his turn, Henry has promised to invest the money in a business scheme with Sam Fletcher and Sam Bogosian. When Jonathan suddenly drops dead, Henry, Sam and his secretary, Sally, the Fiddlers Three of the title, scheme to keep him ‘alive’ until the 18th. This involves a double impersonation, a dubious death certificate and a revelation about an earlier murder. Complications arise in the second act when various people who knew Jonathan arrive at their hideaway hotel demanding to see him.
Like many of Christie’s later, and weaker, titles it contains good ideas but her earlier genius for exploiting them has deserted her; if she had written this play 20 years before she would have developed the plot in a more convincing manner. There is an unlikely impersonation and some unconvincing business with pill bottles before the play culminates in the unmasking of an improbable murderer. It cannot be coincidence that many of her later plays—Spider’s Web, The Unexpected Guest, Verdict, The Rats and Fiddlers Three—feature this type of a will-they-get-away-with-it situation even if she frequently manages to reveal a murderer also.
Unsurprisingly, her producer Peter Saunders was not anxious to present it in the West End, correctly presuming that it would receive a critical mauling. As it was, the local press was hardly kinder and phrases such as ‘entertaining, amusing but undemanding play’, ‘lightest vein—bordering on farce’ and ‘the plot is predictable, witless and shallow’ peppered what reviews there were.
As early as October 1958, the first seeds were sown in Notebook 15, although it would be over a dozen years before she began to culti
vate it seriously. Obviously, even this late in her career, she was revisiting her faithful Notebooks to find exploitable ideas:
Oct. 1958
Projects
A Play—light-hearted (a Spider’s Web type) Where?—girl’s school?
Or Cheating Death parties? Pretending a death? or smuggling away a natural death—devoted fluffy secretary?—a silly type deliberately chosen? Boardroom—K. doubles as wife and corpse—wig etc.—Grand muddle—
The ‘girl’s school’ idea surfaced as Cat among the Pigeons, published the following year. And the ‘Cheating Death parties’ was briefly pursued in Notebook 39 below. ‘Smuggling away a natural death’ was the one that provided the basis of Fiddlers Three.
Notebook 4 contains most of the plotting, but, as with the later book titles, the notes themselves are vague and unfocussed although the list of characters is accurate. A minor mystery about this play is the naming of the two main characters; Panhacker and Bogosian are two of the most unusual names in the entire Christie output.
Scene—an office
Mr Willis Stanley a bit off- story
His friend Mr. Bogosian
Nellie (M) devoted rather talkative and scatty
The Penthouse owner—Very rich man lives in W. Indies
His son or nephew? Make over all his English assets
Going to finance—only a fortnight to go
Then goes up after lunch—or is lift out of order—so he comes in here—sits in other room—found dead
M. says it will be her husband or brother—Go out to buy me
an onion [to induce tears]
Jeremy Brooker Brown
That’s all right—he’s got to be alive—Geraldine—Go on upstairs with things
Gina
Sally Lee
Sam Fletcher
Jan Bogosian
Henry Panhacker
Solomon Panhacker
An Air Hostess
Detective Inspector Wylie
Mr. Moss
Various titles were considered and This Mortal Coil appears on an early script:
This Mortal Coil
Operation Deadline
Sixpence Off
Deadline
Fiddle de Death
In Notebook 39, under the mysterious heading ‘M and J Play’, we find two attempts at a ‘death duties’ play. The first sketch has echoes of ‘Jane in Search of a Job’, originally published in August 1924 and collected ten years later in The Listerdale Mystery:
Death duties—girl is dead—great fortune is coming to her—idea is she has to appear alive for one more week. Man advertises for young lady—5ft 7in, fair—hair slight build, blue eyes etc. First scene interesting girls whittled down—one is chosen to impersonate girl—J
The second is nearer to the eventual plot, but this was not developed until Notebook 4 where it becomes recognisably Fiddlers Three:
Death Duties—a natural death body has to be hidden for a week—impersonation by M or J—undertaker helps. Office—M and her two employers
Mr Leonard—big, bouncy, common
Mr Arkwright—melancholy—dreary
They are in a jam—what to do
Sally!
Akhnaton Published 14 May 1973
Spanning a period of 16 years, the play concerns the attempts of the young King Akhnaton to introduce a new religion to Egypt. His failure spells tragedy for himself, his queen and, ultimately, Egypt.
There are almost 50 pages of notes for this title, mainly in Notebook 61. Called by Christie’s husband, Sir Max Mallowan, ‘the most beautiful play’ she ever wrote, it is based on the real-life Pharoah Akhnaton of Egypt in 1375 BC Although written in 1937 it was not published until 1973, with a blurb written by Agatha Christie herself. Shortly after its completion Christie sent it to the actor (later Sir) John Gielgud. His reply, which she kept, expressed his admiration for the play while declining to become involved in a production. In fact Akhnaton was never professionally produced, but it was seen in the Westcliff Agatha Christie Theatre Festival in 2001; the one-off presentation used a minimum of setting and props and was, in essence, an elaborate reading.
Although by no means a typical Agatha Christie play, it does contain Christie-like elements—there is a death by poisoning, masterminded by an unsuspected villain using an innocent party.
There are 40 pages of notes for this play. These include extensive background material as well as sketches for the play itself. The very first page of notes begins with a cast list (in the published version Mutnezmet, Nefertiti’s sister, has become Nezzemut), and this is followed by a sketch of the opening scene:
Queen Tyi
Horemheb
Eye
Nefertiti
Mutnezmet
Tutankhamun
The father of Tyi
The mother of Tyi
The High Priest of Amon
The High Priest of Re
A Priest of Ptah
Act I Scene I
Amenhotep the Magnificent is near to death—the king of Mitanni sends the image of Ishtar of Niniveh to Egypt (second time such a procedure happened) in hopes that the Goddess might exorcise the evil spirits which were causing the King’s infirmity. The Goddess passes through. Horemheb talks with the father and mother of Tyi talk together. The High Priest of Ammon talks to Horemheb—on evils of foreign marriage—Queen Tyi appears with her son.—
The early pages of Notebook 61 show seven scenes for Act I, four for Act II and two for Act III. A redrafting ten pages later brings it closer to the published version, which has three scenes each for the first two Acts and four for the third with an Epilogue. The notes show this Epilogue as the last scene of the play.
In between the drafts there are notes on
Indulgences—A verdict of acquittal sold by Scribes—pardoned names inserted in the blanks.
Heart scarab—‘O my heart rise not up against me as a witness’
Gold collars as gifts—
The book From Fetish to God by Budge is also mentioned on the very first page and there are page references to it throughout the notes. This research is similar to that undertaken by Christie for Death Comes as the End from books loaned to her by Stephen Glanville, the dedicatee (see Chapter 7):
Visit by Tyi in 12th year of A’s reign—description of clothes P.155
Tribute?—A scene showing it being brought’ P.151
Description of Palace for scene P.138
One of the earliest quotations, presumably from this book, is reproduced with minor variations to form almost the closing lines of the play. The last traces of Akhnaton are erased, soon to be replaced by ‘the divine Amon, King of Gods’:
How bountiful are the possessions of him who knows the gifts of that God (Amon). Wise is he who knows him. Favoured is he who serves him, there is protection for him who follows him.
Exhibit F: The House of Dreams: Unused Ideas
‘Unless I get a rough sketch of my idea down, it will go’
Mrs McGinty’s Dead, Chapter 24
SOLUTIONS REVEALED
Four-Fifty from Paddington • ‘Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan’ • ‘Miss Marple Tells a Story’
There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that detective novelist Nicholas Blake (in real life the Poet Laureate Cecil Day Lewis) offered to buy some plot ideas from Christie but she replied that she intended using them all herself. The Notebooks are littered with such ideas and what follows are some of those that never got further than the page on which they appeared. Some haunted her—the non-identical twins, the chambermaid, the arty friends—as they appeared again and again.
Twins—point is not identical—Twins identical—one killed in railway smash?
Identical twins—claimant assumes identity of sister (killed in railway smash) rich widow
These are just two of the ten versions of the ‘twins’ idea that litter the Notebooks. A railway smash and a false identity are minor features of Murder in Mesopotamia. Twin siste
rs also feature in Elephants Can Remember and on a more lighthearted note, twins are the solution to one of Tommy and Tuppence’s Partners in Crime cases.
Mirrors
Man or woman—she gets post or chums up with another woman—they come to hotel together.
Background of one is all right—cathedral town etc. Have been in A.R.P. together—they give alibi to man
The heading ‘Mirrors’ confirms what a diffuse history They Do it with Mirrors had. The only tenuous connection to that novel is the idea of giving an alibi to someone.
Nitro benzene—point is—it sinks to bottom of glass—woman takes sip from it—then gives it to husband
Camphor in capsule
Murder by lipstick—lip burnt first—cigarette given wrong end first
Strychnine or drug absorbed through skin
Influenza depression virus—Stolen? Cabinet Minister?
Lanolin poison? Strychnine? The poison that makes everything yellow (applied to dress—very misleading as another girl had yellow dress (1931)
Lanoline rubbed into skin
Despite its heading, this page from Notebook 19 has no connection with any ‘Mirrors’ title. It is the page open on Christie’s lap in this 1946 photograph.
These are just a few of the ideas using various forms of poison, Christie’s favourite method of despatch throughout her career. ‘Murder by lipstick’ is particularly imaginative.
Chambermaid in hotel accomplice of man—evidence always accepted and clinches case