by Julius Green
Christie herself continued to receive problematic tax demands relating to the small number of copyrights that she personally retained, and was distressed to find that she was still being heavily taxed on her salary from Agatha Christie Ltd. But, throughout, she was always at pains to ensure that the numerous and complicated tax avoidance schemes diligently concocted by her advisors were both legal and ethical, and expressed her ‘complete trust’ in her team.119 There were later to be issues for some of Agatha’s beneficiaries regarding the reversion of assigned copyrights but, under the circumstances, the work put in by Cork, Ober, Reinheimer and Hicks made the best of a wearisome and very complicated scenario. In March 1957 Agatha wrote to Cork, ‘How are all my tax affairs, companies and trusts? Don’t let them get you down! And don’t tell me about them unless it’s absolutely necessary!’120 and in another letter, she noted that ‘in tax, the dice are always loaded against one.’121 Cork in turn lamented that the more successful an agent was in their client’s lifetime, the worse were the problems created by their client’s death. At Christie’s death, the estate of the best-selling novelist, and best-selling female playwright, of all time was valued at £106,000.122 Cork and his colleagues had certainly done their job.
To a certain extent, we perhaps owe the sudden blossoming of Agatha Christie, playwright, in the 1950s to the tax regime. At she notes in her autobiography, ‘Seeing the point to which taxation has now risen, I was pleased to think it was no longer really worth-while for me to work so hard: one book a year would be ample. If I wrote two books a year, I should hardly earn more than by writing one, and only give myself a great deal of extra work. Certainly, there was no longer the old incentive. If there was something out of the ordinary that I really wanted to do, that would be different.’123 What she really wanted to do, of course, was write plays, and given that she had nothing to lose by switching her focus as a writer to the stage, that is exactly what she did. ‘Why not write a play instead of a book? Much more fun. One book a year would take care of finances, so I could now enjoy myself in an entirely different medium.’
Not surprisingly, Christie saw dramatic potential in her tax problems, and she was particularly tickled by the idea that, in order to avoid death duties on the assets she had gifted to various trusts, it was necessary for her to live for another five years. ‘The doll will do her best to live another five years,’ she would write to Cork,124 and in her autobiography she wrote, ‘As far as I could make out from what lawyers and tax people told me about death duties – very little of which I ever understood – my demise was going to be an unparalleled disaster for all my relations, and their only hope was to keep me alive as long as possible!’125 Christie now set about combining the idea of a play about death duties with her other pet project of a comedy for Margaret and Julia Lockwood.
In Notebook 15, under the heading ‘Oct 1958’, Christie wrote:
Projects
A play – light-hearted (a Spider’s Web type) Where? – girl’s school?
Or Cheating Death Duties? Pretending a death? Or smuggling away a natural death – devoted fluffy secretary?
Then, in Notebook 39 under the heading ‘M and J play’, there are two outline plots for a ‘death duties’ play, one of which developed into a full-length script called This Mortal Coil, the second Christie play to take its title from a line in Hamlet. We hear nothing more of the ‘girls’ school’ idea, but it is clear from the notebooks that Miss Perry, the ‘Spy’ play and This Mortal Coil were being developed in parallel as alternative comedy vehicles for the Lockwoods. Alongside these, Christie was also making notes for an altogether different play, unaccountably given the working title ‘Mousetrap II’, which centres on a party in Soho and a poisoning scenario that sounds not dissimilar to that in her 1937 short story and radio play The Yellow Iris.
‘Mousetrap II’ never got as far as a draft script, but the Agatha Christie archive contains a number of drafts for the ‘death duties’ play This Mortal Coil, along with extensive typed and handwritten notes. Christie’s notoriously illegible writing became clearer as she grew older, and her struggle to get this play written and staged, despite resistance from her family, her agent and her regular producer, took up much time and fills several files. The earliest copy, with each act bound separately, appears to have been typed by Christie herself at around the same time that she typed the first draft of Miss Perry, and includes numerous handwritten corrections and amendments. The dramatis personae of eleven includes Sally (next to which name Christie has written ‘ML’) and Gina (next to which she has written ‘JL’). Three alternative titles are suggested on the front page: ‘FIDDLE DE DEE’, ‘SIXPENCE OFF’ and ‘FIDDLERS ALL’. The issues surrounding death duties are explained by the lawyer Truscott:
TRUSCOTT: Your father is a very rich man. Death duties on his estate will, of course, be high, but his various trusts and dispositions will do much to mitigate that. He was wise enough to make them some time ago. He has taken fullest advantage of everything the law allows . . . Your deed of gift was the last of the various arrangements, and I believe I am correct in saying that the necessary five year period of survival expires tomorrow. It was quite an obsession with him. He regarded it as a kind of game. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s saying to the doctor now: ‘Only one day to go.’ It would be like him.126
Although the details of the storyline were to undergo many revisions, the central premise of a man whose inheritance depends on his father living to a certain date remained the central plot point; the titular ‘fiddlers’, whose business schemes depend on the inheritance coming through, find their plans compromised when the father (inevitably) dies before the date in question. A sometimes farcical comedy about business and finance, with a strong undercurrent of criminal activity, it rejoices in characters with names like Bogusian (conveniently shortened to ‘Bogus’ in one of the typescripts) and Panhacker (three letters away from ‘Panhandler’). It’s not a bad idea for a comedy, and corporate tax avoidance scandals are never far from the headlines, but Christie was in her late sixties when she started working on the idea and in her eighties when it was finally performed, so if the comic dialogue lacks her usual sparkle it is perhaps not surprising.
This Mortal Coil may well have been on the agenda at Agatha’s 1962 lunch with Lockwood, but seems, like Miss Perry, to have disappeared from the radar shortly thereafter. It was a letter from Hubert Gregg eight years later, congratulating Christie on her eightieth birthday, that was to get the ball rolling again. On 8 September 1970, a week before her birthday and in the midst of the media circus surrounding it, she replied to him from Greenway:
Dear Hubert,
How very nice to hear from you. Thanks for the birthday greetings – I am snowed under with demands from Journalists of periodicals with incredible names that I have never heard of – and from countries that I did not know existed!
How delightful therefore to hear from a real friend! [In the light of his book, I’m not sure he was, but we’ll let it pass.]
I’m interested in what you say about plays – I got a letter only yesterday from a woman who had gone to see The Mousetrap (after waiting to for 9 years) and ‘Oh the joy of seeing a play that was exciting and where nobody took their clothes off! I am recommending it to all my friends!’
I have got two plays laid aside which I quite like myself – one I started for Margaret Lockwood and her daughter to play in – and then they had a row, I think, and parted company – and so I laid it aside for the time being – there was a general feeling voiced by Peter that it would damage The Mousetrap if another play of mine saw the light of day.
I think now that that is not so. Every year I expect the Mousetrap to come off – and every year it stands up like a permanent monument – it’s uncanny!
When I get back to Wallingford, if you’d like me to, I’ll hunt up these two plays – they are both comedies – and more on the lines of Spider’s Web – and I think there are some good acting parts in both of t
hem.
‘This Mortal Coil’ has a first act in a business office and a second act in a Seaside Luxury Hotel – The other play takes place in a Pub. It’s too short and wants another scene which I was going to write – but never did. I’ll also think over my more recent books with a view to one that might be adaptable.
Perhaps we can meet in London or Wallingford when I get back and talk things over. [Agatha now divided her time between Greenway, her house in Wallingford and her London flat.]
We leave here about 20th September. It would be great fun to see you of course and have a nice theatrical talk –
Yours ever
Agatha Mallowan127
In 1968 the London opening of the hippy musical Hair, with its famous nude sequence at the end of Act One, had been delayed until the Theatres Act of that year – which finally abolished censorship – came into effect. Two years later, Kenneth Tynan’s revue Oh! Calcutta!, another import from New York, also gained notoriety for featuring nudity. And now, at the end of 1970 and the beginning of 1971, Agatha busied herself with rewriting This Mortal Coil, renaming it Fiddlers Five in the process, and relishing the idea of creating a comedy in which no one took their clothes off in the newly censor-free West End. Work in progress for the revised version, again using as its basis a draft that appears to have been typed by Christie herself, has a label saying ‘Fiddlers Five’ stuck over the original title, and includes extensive interleaved amendments. A later version is professionally typed.
In April, once it was finished, she wrote to Gregg again. There had been a postal strike and problems with the telephone. ‘Everything has been chaotic and I have also been trying to get a new book more or less finished,’ she said. But the playscript was ready. ‘I always liked it and have now rewritten it – if you’d care to have a look at it – Hughes Massie have a copy of the newest version. I didn’t know whether it was tied up to Peter Saunders but I gather not – I think it is rather good!! But never go by what the author thinks – rather on the lines of Spider’s Web – anyway, quite good fun – no nudity – which I think people are heartily sick of!’128
Saunders, as it happens, thought no more of Fiddlers Five than he had of This Mortal Coil and turned it down; as indeed did Gregg. Saunders later said, ‘I would, of course, have put it on out of gratitude to her, but felt it would not do her reputation any good. When it was tried out later on I think everyone agreed that it was not vintage Christie.’129 But the resourceful Cork, aware that, as ever, there would be no shortage of touring managements more than happy to take on a new Christie play, did a deal with veteran actor-manager James Grant Anderson, and on 6 May 1971 he was issued with a twelve-month touring licence for Fiddlers Five.130 Whilst Grant Anderson himself was not a West End player, it seems that there was some hope that his production would garner interest in the project from those who were, and the deal included a clause whereby he would receive a 1 per cent royalty if a West End licence was issued within this period.
Although she was absent from some of Peter Saunders’ own later productions of her work, Agatha made a point of being in attendance for the touring premiere of her new play at the King’s Theatre Southsea on 7 June 1971, at which seventy-four-year-old Grant Anderson made a gracious and stirring curtain speech applauding her lifetime’s contribution to theatre. The advertisements for the production read, ‘J Grant Anderson has the great privilege to present the world premiere of Agatha Christie’s FIDDLERS FIVE: AN OUTSTANDING EVENT IN THE THEATRE – DAME AGATHA’S FIRST NEW PLAY FOR YEARS.’131
The next day, the Portsmouth Evening News reported: ‘The name of Dame Agatha Christie is one automatically associated with thrillers and mystery; comedy isn’t reckoned to be her forte. But last night, with the world premiere of her Fiddlers Five at the King’s Theatre Southsea, the Queen of suspense proved that she had a light hand with comedy.’132 Two days later, the Hampshire Telegraph’s review noted that ‘Miss Christie introduces no detectives, no policemen, no interrogations. Everything is in the lightest vein, verging at times on farce.’133 The Stage, under the headline ‘A Different Agatha Christie’, announced that ‘Agatha Christie’s latest play . . . has deserted the familiar path of the “whodunit” type of thriller with those well-known guides Hercules Poirot [sic] and Miss Marples [sic], in order to go a little off-beat into the realms of black comedy . . . all the time the action is played for laughs rather than chills, but once the story-line has been established there is plenty of humour and sparkle to carry it along to the usual surprise climax.’134 Barry Howard, later to enjoy success as a television comedy actor, scored a particular hit in the dual role of an undertaker and a ‘long-bearded Pakistani doctor’, both ‘shrewdly conceived comic creations’. The mind boggles.
Like the Beatles’ George Harrison in his 1966 song ‘Taxman’, Christie made the most of the opportunity to express her frustration with the tax regime through her work. Over forty years earlier, her sister Madge had observed in Oranges and Lemons, ‘Now we’re taxing wealth. What harm does wealth do a country? If there is a man capable of making money, for Heaven’s sake encourage him to make more!’ Fiddlers Five offers Agatha’s own scathing verdict on the Inland Revenue, and it pulls no punches:
BOGUSIAN: Fortunately on a bus, one does not have to pay. There is a special technique. I adopt it always.
FLETCHER: That’s the way of business, Sally.
SALLY: Not all business. There are some kinds of business that aren’t like that.
BOGUSIAN: And then what happens? The tax collector takes all. Why should I do business to please the Inland Revenue?
SALLY: Don’t talk to me about Income Tax and the Inland Revenue! Barefaced robbers they are! Look what they did to Lil West. Just went out to work, casual like, to get a bit of extra pay for her washing machine. Took the best of it away from her. And why, I’d like to know? She worked for it, didn’t she? Why should they count it in with her husband? And poor old Ma Grant, they docked her Old Age Pension – said she did too much sewing at home. And then there was the poor old Smiths – on National Assistance and they cut that because –
FLETCHER: Ease up, Sally, ease up. We know all about that.
SALLY: Well, it makes me mad, it does! I’ll give them Inland Revenue!
BOGUSIAN: You see, in business you do the business in a way that the tax collector, he cannot touch it. And when the business comes off nicely and you have the big money, why then you look round for some more business that will be like that again . . .
. . .
FLETCHER: Look here, Sally, if you don’t want to be a criminal, say so.
SALLY: I’m all for crime. But it’s got to be the right sort of crime.
FLETCHER: Aren’t you particular? Quite the little lady. And what’s the right kind of crime?
SALLY: Well, smuggling – something like that. Or doing down the income tax. I’d swindle them any day. Monstrous what they did to Lil and poor old Mrs Grant. Let’s do down the income tax! I wouldn’t have conscience at all about that!
BOGUSIAN: Ah, but it is highly specialised that. I tell you, I know.
FLETCHER: I bet you do, you old crook!
BOGUSIAN: Last year, they dare to question my return. I go there. I see this Mr Blood Sucker. I say to him, ‘Listen,’ I say, ‘In this return I make, I cheat you very little – hardly at all. If I wish I could have cheated you much more. But no, I like to be honest.’ ‘So,’ I say to him, ‘You better to accept this. Otherwise I take it back and I fill you up another return, and in that I cheat you a great deal – but you will not be able to find out how. Because if I wish to cheat, I can cheat very good. So, you see, you better to accept this.’
SALLY: And what did he do?
BOGUSIAN: He accepted it. He knows me.135
Rosalind was horrified. The previous year her mother had been feted as a national treasure on her eightieth birthday, and in the 1971 New Year’s Honours she had been made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, Max having been knighted three years pre
viously. Much of Christie’s literary career had been centred around the theme of criminals receiving their comeuppance, and yet suddenly she appeared to be endorsing criminal activity, apparently from a position of knowledge. Rosalind was even more horrified to hear that there had been a serious offer to present the play in the West End, particularly as the production itself appears to have been somewhat low rent. On 20 July Cork wrote to Grant Anderson in no uncertain terms, expressing his dismay at numerous aspects of the performances and staging,136 and on the same day, Rosalind wrote to her mother:
As you know, there has been quite a good offer to put Fiddlers Five on in London in the winter. I think Cork is tempted partly as usual by the prospect of it earning some more money and partly because he thinks you would like to see it put on in London. I think he is doubtful about it though, as he doesn’t like it himself. Whatever he may say about it, Mathew is not sure about it and didn’t think it was very well done or well received in Bristol. I am sending you the press cuttings from Nottingham and Manchester not because I want to be unkind but because I know Mr Cork doesn’t send you anything he thinks might upset you. Actually, I don’t expect you would be nearly as upset about them as I am! I as you know haven’t seen it but I didn’t like it when I read it, and as I am always honest with you I may say I should be most upset to see it on in London. A lot of people would obviously go to see it because it was by you, whatever the reviews were like. Peter Saunders genuinely thought it wouldn’t do in London. I expect you and Max will think it is very feeble of me but your fans do admire your work and indeed you yourself to a quite frightening degree. I don’t think this play is worthy of you, and you are in this play letting people get away with crime and cheating the income tax and even in fun I don’t think it is funny.137