Curtain Up

by Julius Green

  This, of course, was a red rag to a bull, and elicited by way of response one of the most extraordinary letters Agatha ever wrote. In a handwritten missive ten pages long, she is clearly apoplectic about her daughter’s interference, and takes the opportunity to itemise the many swings and roundabouts of her theatrical career in great detail. Much of this extraordinary letter is quoted elsewhere in this book, in the context of the plays to which she is refers, but here is a filleted version:

  Dear Rosalind,

  I’m sorry you are so upset about the awful prospect of Fiddlers Five possibly being done in London.

  I’ve not urged it specially – I can’t see why you are so opposed to it being a commercial success on tour . . . if anyone is prepared to put up big money to put it on with a good cast in London – it will be presumably because it has been commercially a success. It is, as always, a pure gamble on their part.

  If they are really influenced by bad notices they presumably won’t put it on!! I shan’t mind – I have had the great pleasure of seeing it acted myself – I am delighted it has gone onto tour – Like Verdict it will probably go on tour again at intervals in the years to come!

  Spider’s Web, a pure farce if there ever was one – ran for 2 years at the Savoy and took £1800 at Richmond a week or so ago. I knew I’d get bad reviews [for Fiddlers Five] and I’ve had several rather surprising good ones – and 5 curtain calls at many theatres.

  The Mousetrap – on tour originally – had only one criticism that could be used in adverts – all the others were somewhat unfavourable.

  Verdict was not a success in London – but I am very glad it came on – I’ve had to put up with several plays and films that I hate to have been associated with my name. I hated Murder At the Vicarage and a Miss Marple of twenty odd – and several other of the ‘adapted’ plays from my books. It was because I hated them so much that I determined to adapt the Hollow myself . . . you did your utmost to persuade me not to! . . . If you’d succeeded in making me stick to books – there would probably have been no Mousetrap – no Witness for the Prosecution – no Spider’s Web.

  I could have stopped any more adaptation of my books – but I should not have been a playwright and should have missed a lot of fun!

  [She goes on to say how she had her arm twisted with Rule of Three and Gerald Verner’s Towards Zero, to explain how Bertie Meyer had a hit with the original production of Ten Little Niggers when C.B. Cochrane had turned it down and that she was pleased she had persuaded Peter Saunders to put on Verdict . . .]

  I have not in any way urged him to put on Fiddlers in London. He doesn’t like it, is quite probably right and I shouldn’t want him to do anything of the kind . . . All theatrical things are a pure gamble. If there’s no London production I’ll be quite glad for your sake!

  But I wrote the play (some years ago now), have always liked it – and I shan’t mind unduly if it is a flop – whatever I write in the play line would get nasty notices – chiefly because of The Mousetrap which is much resented by all the younger journalists.

  I know you have my best interests at heart – as AP did when she implored me not to marry Max (apparently for religious reasons?) and even refused to come to the wedding. I’m thankful I didn’t listen to her! Forty years of happiness I should have missed.

  If one doesn’t take a few risks in life one might as well be dead.

  A lot of love to you,

  Nima138

  We seem to be entering A Daughter’s a Daughter territory here, with Rosalind apparently advocating that her mother should abandon a course of action that will bring her happiness.

  On 2 August Cork, ever the diplomat, stepped in to avert what appeared to be developing into a family crisis. He wrote to Agatha ostensibly agreeing with her that the play deserved a West End life. ‘How many plays are there in London at the moment to which one could take the whole family?’ he asked, knowing that this would be music to her ears. ‘My attitude about this has always been that what you want goes.’139 However, he continued, ‘we must face the fact that we will get a hostile press – maybe any new play of yours would at this time . . . but people who have seen it have enjoyed it, and there is a lot of evidence that it is good entertainment. And this despite the fact that the production is far below West End standard. Star casting and first class directing would bring out all sorts of potentialities that have yet to be realised . . .’

  Cork sent a copy of his letter to Rosalind, with a covering note saying, ‘In fifty years of dealing with authors I have become very chary of stopping production of works against a writer’s wishes. Occasionally it has to be done if faculties fail, but I do assure you it is a most dangerous thing to do!’ As he did not insist that production of the piece should be stopped, we must assume that he at least did not believe that in Agatha’s case faculties were failing.

  Perhaps as a result of Cork’s wonderfully artful letter, which expresses full support to Agatha whilst cleverly sewing the seeds of doubt, there appears to have been a compromise between her and her advisors. On 24 September 1971 a West End licence was issued to producer James Verner (no relation of Gerald),140 who had been responsible for the London production of Hair and who had himself directed a tour of Murder at the Vicarage for young impresario Cameron Mackintosh in 1969, at a time when Mackintosh had also been touring Black Coffee and Love from a Stranger. But a plan was put in place to revise the script of Fiddlers Five and create a new production of it before the play was presented in the West End.

  The new director was to be Allan Davis who, having opened the hit comedy No Sex Please, We’re British a few months earlier, was very much the ‘go-to’ comedy director of the day. Peter Saunders would later buy out John Grant’s Volcano Productions, the company behind No Sex Please . . ., but it seems that Davis’ introduction to the project may have come by another route; according to some sources, it was Cameron Mackintosh who took him to see the production on its original tour.141 Ironically, the comedy which Christie hoped would attract family audiences was now in the hands of the director of No Sex Please, We’re British and the producer of Hair.

  As soon as the licence had been issued to Verner, Christie wrote again to Hubert Gregg. After discussing her deteriorating health, she promised him, ‘If I am considering writing another play I’ll let you know – I’ve got a new book coming out next month – and a book a year is about enough to occupy me. I didn’t think Fiddlers Five would have been your kind – but I thought you might as well have a look at it, as I was thinking of doing things to it if anyone fancied it!! The critics mostly dislike it – but it also seems to play to good houses and to be commercially successful. Parts of it are fun which is why I enjoyed writing it originally, but it is in no way a thriller.’142

  Davis, who met with Christie before commencing work on the script, set about the task of revising it with great alacrity, and there was some lively correspondence between them at the start of 1972, in which she gave her comments on his amendments and interpolations. The ‘Fiddlers Five’ had now become ‘Fiddlers Three’, partly through the amalgamation of the older and younger female roles originally intended for the Lockwoods: ‘Sally now comes out a very good leading-lady’s part . . . and I even wonder if Sally Blunt might not be developed for the play “you are going to write when you are 83!”’ Davis explained, going on to say that he was hoping to interest Irene Handl in the role, and emphasising that ‘Speed is now of the essence if we are to get the play off the ground this season . . . and if we could we’d like to be well established in the West End when all your American fans arrive – so we need your OK to go ahead just as soon as you can give it, please.’143

  Despite increasing ill health, Agatha relished the opportunity to reshape her play yet again, and made it clear that she was not prepared to relinquish the driving seat to Davis. In particular, she was keen to retain a scene where one of the conspirators sends a cheque to the Chancellor by way of ‘conscience money’ at the end of the play: ‘I think S
ally wanting to send conscience money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer shows herself as a very endearing and lovable character.’144 This concept had appeared in one of the very first notes for the piece.

  Fiddlers Three (not to be confused with the 1991 Eric Chappell comedy of the same title) opened at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, on 1 August 1972, again in the presence of the now very fragile Agatha, who received a standing ovation when she entered the auditorium on the arm of the theatre’s director. ‘In all the creative arts there are exponents who transcend the rules . . .’ reported the Surrey Advertiser. ‘No one could disguise the play’s basic weaknesses, but a playwright whose box office support outstrips that of Coward, Rattigan and Bolt, not to mention Shaw and Sheridan, can afford to make her own laws. And a mere journalist denigrates a cult goddess at his peril.’145

  The play included the following exchange, as Henry explains to Sally that his father has bequeathed him £100,000 that he once won in a bet:

  HENRY: Father drew up a deed making that money mine – on the day he reached seventy years of age . . . He gave it to me because he said it would teach me a sharp lesson.

  SALLY: Teach you not to gamble, you mean?

  HENRY: The other way round – teach me the advantages of gambling and of taking risks. He’s always thought I’m a terrible sissy not to want to gamble.

  SALLY: Your father must be an extraordinary man.

  HENRY: Oh he is. I’ve always been a great disappointment to him. I’m so – well, ordinary and cautious.146

  As a crushing put-down aimed by the cult goddess at her own daughter, this could not have been more direct.

  Irene Handl hadn’t bitten, but popular Welsh comedienne Doris Hare took the role of Sally, which had originally been written ten years previously for Margaret Lockwood, and by all accounts made a good job of it. Although the Guildford production, and the short tour thereafter, had been intended as a stepping stone to the West End, nothing was to come of it. James Verner instead mounted yet another production for a twenty-week tour in 1973, with yet another director at the helm. Peggy Mount now took on the role of Sally, and the indomitable James Grant Anderson, having stepped aside at Guildford, again took on the relatively small role of solicitor Mr Truscott.

  It seems that Verner was, perhaps, less of a player than he himself had made out. In his book The Worst It Can Be Is a Disaster (2009), Braham Murray, director of his 1975 production of The Black Mikado, is less than complimentary about Verner’s business dealings.147 I couldn’t possibly comment; but consigning Christie’s final play to the touring circuit evidently suited her advisors, so I can’t imagine that any objections were raised. Had Fiddlers Three transferred to the West End, as intended, in September 1972, it would have been performed in a very different theatrical environment from that in which Black Coffee had opened in 1931. Alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company’s repertoire at the Aldwych and the National Theatre’s at the Old Vic, and an Arnold Wesker play at the Royal Court, the Palace Theatre was showing Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell was playing at Wyndham’s. Meanwhile, No Sex Please, We’re British was at the Strand, Hair was in its fourth year at the Shaftesbury, Oh! Calcutta was in its third year at the Royalty, the Whitehall was home to ‘London’s controversial sex comedy’ Pyjama Tops and the Duchess was hosting The Dirtiest Show in Town (‘makes Oh! Calcutta seem like Little Women’ said the New York Times). The title of Ten Little Niggers may have been changed in 1966, but in 1972 the Black and White Minstrel Show was playing at the Victoria Palace as the Dance Theatre of Jamaica arrived to perform at Sadler’s Wells. You couldn’t make it up.

  Amidst this smorgasbord of theatrical delights, The Mousetrap was advertising its ‘twentieth proud year’ and Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth was in its ‘third thrilling’ year at the neighbouring St Martin’s Theatre, where Peter Saunders had acquired the lease four years previously. West Street was now known as ‘thriller alley’, and in June Christie had attended Sleuth at Shaffer’s invitation.

  In November 1973 Christie, now aged eighty-three, was enthused by what she saw as an opportunity for Miss Perry to reach the stage. She had received an enquiry about a possible play from her friend Cicely Courtneidge, now aged eighty, to tour with her husband Jack Hulbert, and urged Cork to send them her unperformed comedy; evidently this was with a view to Courtneidge playing the role of Poppy, which had been written for a considerably younger Margaret Lockwood. ‘It could be made very funny by Cicely going all out and people seem to love her doing it!!’ she wrote to Cork. ‘It’s a funnier play than Fiddlers Three and I should really like to see it done.’148 It wasn’t; and the following month Hughes Massie took an advertisement in The Stage to say that Agatha Christie’s ‘high comedy’ Fiddlers Three was ‘now available for repertory’, the main selling point evidently being that it only required ‘two easy sets’.149 By contrast, 1973 had also finally seen the publication of Christie’s then unperformed historical drama Akhnaton, with its epic staging requirements. She had found it in a drawer the previous year and, encouraged by the success of the Tutankhamun exhibition which was attracting big crowds at the British Museum, carried out some final edits and sent it to Collins.

  In early 1974 Saunders’ lease on the Ambassadors came up for renewal and, unable to agree terms with the owners, he decided to move The Mousetrap across the alley to St Martin’s Theatre, where he had taken over the lease six years previously; Sleuth moved on to the Fortune. The relocation of The Mousetrap was achieved over the weekend of 23 March, without missing a performance. It has remained in its new home ever since: the longest running theatrical production of any kind, ever. Despite the protests of Rosalind, the very frail Agatha, who had suffered a heart attack the previous month, proudly co-hosted the play’s annual birthday party in November. In December, she suffered a fall at her house, Winterbrook, in Wallingford, where she now spent her time.

  When Agatha Christie died, aged eighty-five, at home with her beloved Max, on 12 January 1976, two West End theatres dimmed their lights: the St Martin’s and the Savoy, where a successful touring revival of Moie Charles and Barbara Toy’s Murder at the Vicarage, produced by Ray Cooney, had found a home. Barbara Mullen was reprising the role of Miss Marple, which she had first played in 1949. This time, she was old enough for the part.

  Curtain Call

  I can think of no better phrase to sum up Christie’s legacy as a dramatist than that adopted by J.C. Trewin in his entertaining contribution to H.R.F. Keating’s Agatha Christie, First Lady of Crime (1977). Hers was indeed ‘A Midas gift to the theatre’. Theatrical empires, from Peter Saunders to Cameron Mackintosh, have been founded on her work, which has been seen and enjoyed in countless productions in numerous languages around the world. In 2001 the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival, comprising her complete dramatic works as then known, was staged over twelve weeks at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea. Five years later the Agatha Christie Theatre Company was established; presented by Bill Kenwright and endorsed by her estate, it has since enjoyed great success touring her plays in the UK. In Hubert Gregg’s words, ‘She has defied changes of taste, sharpenings of critical view, the breaking of New Waves. She is a mighty anomaly. A square peg in a round world.’1 In the extraordinarily small window of opportunity between entrusting her theatrical work to Peter Saunders in 1950 and the Royal Court revolution of 1956, she wrote, as a woman in her sixties, four hit plays: The Hollow, The Mousetrap, Witness for the Prosecution and Spider’s Web. In doing so she created the longest-running piece of theatre of all time and became the only woman ever to have three plays running in the West End simultaneously. As Trewin puts it, Christie ‘fortified the theatre of entertainment’.

  Arguably the principal beneficiary of Christie’s ‘Midas gift’ was Peter Saunders, who was quoted as saying that the true extent of his earnings from The Mousetrap was ‘a secret between God and my accountant’.2 Saunders remarks in his book, ‘People have said to me, “You are lucky. Anyone could make money with the
Agatha Christie plays.” But was it luck? . . . I was the lowliest of all the producers at the time, and there is no question that if anybody else had “recognised this opportunity and taken advantage of it” they could have had the Christie plays . . . No. Luck has only a minimal part to play in the success of a producer.’3 He was knighted in 1982, an honour never afforded to Binkie Beaumont, retired to his Bishop’s Avenue House, Monkswell, in 1994, happy in the company of his second wife, Katie Boyle, and died, aged ninety-one, in 2003. Edmund Cork had died in 1988 at the age of ninety-four, having represented Agatha Christie for sixty-five years. Bertie Meyer had died in 1967, aged ninety.

  According to Saunders’ Daily Telegraph obituary, ‘Unsurprisingly, he lamented in 1955, “I don’t want people to think that Mrs Christie’s is the only egg I can sit on”. Saunders was, in fact, a highly skilled producer of more than 100 plays, many of them in the West End and on Broadway. He was particularly associated with comedies and light thrillers, including Alfie; Arsenic and Old Lace; No Sex Please, We’re British; and Lloyd George Knew My Father.’4

  Former Sunday Times critic Harold Hobson, in The Mousetrap’s fortieth anniversary brochure, eulogises him thus:

  No man without an extraordinary degree of fighting spirit and determination could have done what he did; that is overthrow the nearest thing to a monopoly we have ever come to in the theatrical profession. During and after the war the H.M. Tennent management dominated the London theatre. Tennent’s did a great deal of admirable work in the theatre, and gained a great reputation for their polish and style. But the role they played came to restrict unduly the activities of other managements, and consequently the range of theatre itself. Many managements chafed impotently under the hardships inflicted on them by this monopoly but only Peter Saunders studied the laws governing the theatre so carefully that he was able to establish in the realm of the drama an era of managerial freedom . . . Much of the most influential opinion in the theatre world of the last quarter of the century (and even before) has been built on the assumption that somehow there is something disgraceful in giving pleasure in the theatre . . . Fortunately, Peter Saunders has never believed this absurd fallacy any more than Shakespeare, Dr Johnson, or the greatest of French dramatists did. Believing then, as he does, in entertainment, he has demonstrated the potency of this belief with rare power. Few others have done it so unequivocally.5