Curtain Up

by Julius Green

  Adapted by Margery Vosper from ‘Accident’ (short story: included in The Listerdale Mystery, Collins, 1934)

  First published: Theatrecraft Plays Book Two, Nelson & Sons, 1939

  Peril at End House

  Adapted by Arnold Ridley from Peril at End House (novel: Collins, 1932)

  First published: Samuel French, 1945

  Murder at the Vicarage

  Adapted by Moie Charles and Barbara Toy from The Murder at the Vicarage (novel: Collins, 1930)

  First published: Samuel French, 1950

  Towards Zero

  Adapted by Gerald Verner (with nominal assistance from Agatha Christie) from Towards Zero (novel: Collins, 1944)

  Published: Dramatists Play Service, USA, 1957/Samuel French 1958

  Other plays of interest

  Casson, Lewis (adapted from Level, Maurice), Crime (unpublished: LCP 1921/28)

  Coward, Noël, This Year of Grace (Chappell, 1928)

  Coward, Noël, The Better Half (1922 – published in Hand, Richard J. and Wilson, Michael, London’s Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror, 2007)

  Dane, Clemence, A Bill of Divorcement (Heinemann, 1921)

  Delaney, Shelagh, A Taste of Honey (Methuen, 1959)

  Grantham, A. E., The Wisdom of Akhnaton (The Bodley Head, 1920)

  Osborne, John, Look Back in Anger (Faber and Faber, 1957)

  Phillpotts, Adelaide Eden, Akhnaton: A Play (Thornton Butterworth, 1926)

  Priestley, J. B., Dangerous Corner (Samuel French, 1933)

  Priestley, J. B., Time and The Conways (Heinemann, 1937)

  Rattigan, Terence, The Deep Blue Sea (Hamish Hamilton, 1952)

  Saunders, Peter, Scales of Justice (Chappell Plays, 1988)

  Shaw, George Bernard, Getting Married, A Disquisitory Play (Constable, 1908)

  Shaw, George Bernard, Misalliance (Constable, 1914)

  Watts, M. F., The Claimant (unpublished: ACA. LCP Ref: 1924/25)

  Watts, M. F., Oranges and Lemons (unpublished: ACA, date unknown)

  Books about Agatha Christie and her work

  Barnard, Robert, A Talent to Deceive (Collins, 1980)

  Bloom, Harold (ed.), Modern Critical Views: Agatha Christie (Chelsea House, USA, 2002)

  Cade, Jared, Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days (Peter Owen, 1998)

  Christie, Agatha, An Autobiography (Collins, 1977)

  Curran, John, Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (HarperCollins, 2009)

  Curran, John, Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making (HarperCollins, 2011)

  Gill, Gillian, Agatha Christie: The Woman and her Mysteries (Robson, 1999)

  Haining, Peter, Agatha Christie: Murder in Four Acts (Virgin Books, 1990)

  Holgate, Mike, Stranger Than Fiction: Agatha Christie’s True Crime Inspirations (History Press, 2010)

  Keating, H.R.F., Agatha Christie: First Lady of Crime (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977)

  Light, Alison, Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars (Routledge, 1991)

  Mackaskill, Hilary, Agatha Christie at Home (Frances Lincoln, 2009)

  Makinen, Merja, Agatha Christie: Investigating Femininity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)

  Morgan, Janet, Agatha Christie: A Biography (Collins, 1984)

  Osborne, Charles, The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie (Collins, 1982)

  Prichard, Mathew (ed.), Agatha Christie: The Grand Tour (HarperCollins, 2012)

  Ramsey, G.C., Agatha Christie: Mistress of Mystery (Dodd, Mead & Co., USA, 1967/Collins, 1968)

  Robyns, Gwen, The Mystery of Agatha Christie (Doubleday, USA, 1978)

  Rowland, Susan, From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell: British Women Writers in Detective and Crime Fiction (Palgrave, 2001)

  Sanders, Dennis and Lovallo, Len, The Agatha Christie Companion (Delacorte Press, USA, 1984/W.H. Allen, 1985)

  Thompson, Laura, Agatha Christie: An English Mystery (Headline Review, 2007)

  Trumpler, Charlotte (ed.), Agatha Christie and Archaeology (British Museum Press, 2001)

  Underwood, Lynn (ed.), Agatha Christie: Official Centenary Celebration (Belgrave Publishing, 1990)

  Autobiographies and memoirs

  Attenborough, Richard and Hawkins, Diana, Entirely Up to You, Darling (Hutchinson, 2008)

  Black, Kitty, Upper Circle: A Theatrical Chronicle (Methuen, 1984)

  Brown, Curtis, Contacts (Cassell, 1935)

  Cotes, Peter, No Star Nonsense: A Challenging Declaration of Faith in the Essentials of Tomorrow’s Theatre (Rockliff, 1949)

  Cotes, Peter, Thinking Aloud: Fragments of Autobiography (Peter Owen, 1993)

  Counsell, John, Counsell’s Opinion (Barrie and Rockliff, 1963)

  Dean, Basil, The Theatre at War (Harrap, 1956)

  Dean, Basil, Seven Ages: an Autobiography 1888–1927 (Hutchinson, 1970)

  Dean, Basil, Mind’s Eye: an Autobiography 1927–1972 (Hutchinson 1973)

  Greenfield, George, A Smattering of Monsters: a Kind of Memoir (Little, Brown, 1995)

  Gregg, Hubert, Agatha Christie and all that Mousetrap (William Kimber, 1980)

  Gregg, Hubert, Maybe it’s Because . . . ? (IndePenPress, 2005)

  Guthrie, Tyrone, A Life in the Theatre (Hamish Hamilton, 1960)

  Harris, Jed, A Dance on the High Wire: a Unique Memoir of the Theatre (Crown, USA, 1979)

  Landstone, Charles, Off-Stage: a Personal Record of the First Twelve Years of State Sponsored Drama in Great Britain (Elek Books, 1953)

  Landstone, Charles, I Gate-Crashed (Stainer and Bell, 1975)

  Lockwood, Margaret, Lucky Star (Odhams, 1955)

  Mallowan, Max, Mallowan’s Memoirs (William Collins, 1977)

  Murray, Braham, The Worst it can be is a Disaster (Methuen Drama, 2007)

  Northen, Michael, Northen Lights (Summersdale, 1977)

  Phillpotts, Eden, From the Angle of 88 (Hutchinson, 1951)

  Phillpotts, Eden, Eden Phillpotts (1862–1960) Selected Letters, ed. Dayananda, James Y. (University Press of America, USA, 1982)

  Ross (née Phillpotts), Adelaide, Reverie (Robert Hale, 1981)

  Rowse, A.L., Memories of Men and Women (Eyre Methuen, 1980)

  Saunders, Peter, The Mousetrap Man (Collins, 1972)

  Toy, Barbara, A Fool on Wheels: Tangier to Baghdad by Land Rover (John Murray, 1955)

  Williams, Emlyn, Emlyn (Bodley Head, 1973)

  Wolfit, Donald, First Interval (Odhams, 1954)

  Books about theatre and theatre people

  Aldgate, Anthony and Crighton Robertson, James, Censorship in Theatre and Cinema (Edinburgh University Press, 2005)

  Aston, Elaine and Reinelt, Janelle (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights (Cambridge University Press, 2000)

  Barker, Clive and Gale, Maggie B. (eds), British Theatre Between the Wars: 1918–1939 (Cambridge University Press, 2000)

  Billington, Michael, State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945 (Faber and Faber, 2007)

  Callow, Simon, Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor (Methuen, 1987)

  Cochrane, Clare, Twentieth Century British Theatre: Industry, Art and Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2011)

  Du Maurier, Daphne, Gerald: A Portrait (Victor Gollancz, 1934)

  Duff, Charles, The Lost Summer: The Heyday of the West End Theatre (Nick Hern, 1995)

  Federation of Theatre Unions, Theatre Ownership in Britain (Federation of Theatre Unions, 1953)

  Findlater, Richard, The Unholy Trade (Victor Gollancz, 1952)

  Gale, Maggie B., West End Women: Women and the London Stage, 1918–1962 (Routledge, 1996)

  Gale, Maggie B. and Gardner, Viv (eds), Women, Theatre and Performance: New Histories, New Historiographies (Manchester University Press, 2000)

  Gottfried, Martin, Jed Harris: The Curse of Genius (Little, Brown, USA, 1984)

  Griffiths, Trevor R. and Llewellyn-Jones, Margaret (eds), British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958: A Critical Handbook (Open University Press, 1993)


  Hand, Richard J. and Wilson, Michael, London’s Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horror (University of Exeter Press, 2007)

  Harding, James, Gerald du Maurier: The Last Actor-Manager (Hodder and Stoughton, 1989)

  Harris, Andrew B., Broadway Theatre (Routledge, 1994)

  Harwood, Ronald, Sir Donald Wolfit CBE: His Life and Work in the Unfashionable Theatre (Secker and Warburg, 1971)

  Higham, Charles, Charles Laughton: An Intimate Biography (W.H. Allen, 1976)

  Hirsch, Foster, The Boys from Syracuse: The Shuberts’ Theatrical Empire (Cooper Square Press, USA, 2000)

  Hoare, Philip, Noël Coward: A Biography (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995)

  Holroyd, Michael, Bernard Shaw (Chatto and Windus, 1997)

  Huggett, Richard, Binkie Beaumont: Eminence Grise of the West End Theatre, 1933–1973 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1989)

  Hume, Elizabeth, A Laboratory of Theatre: The History of the Embassy (Central School of Speech and Drama, 2002)

  Kabatchnik, Amnon, Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection 1925–1950 (Scarecrow Press, USA, 2010)

  Kabatchnik, Amnon, Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection 1950–1975 (Scarecrow Press, USA, 2011)

  Kabatchnik, Amnon, Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery and Detection 1975–2000 (Scarecrow Press, USA, 2012)

  Lachman, Marvin, The Villainous Stage: Crime Plays on Broadway and in the West End (McFarland, USA, 2014)

  Lane, Margaret, Edgar Wallace: The Biography of a Phenomenon (Heinemann, 1938)

  Mander, Raymond and Mitchenson, Joe, The Theatres of London, revised and enlarged edition (New English Library, 1975)

  Marshall, Norman, The Other Theatre (John Lehmann, 1947)

  Nicholson, Steve, The Censorship of British Drama 1900–1968, Volumes 1–3 (University of Exeter Press 2003, 2005, 2011)

  Parker, John (original ed.), Who’s Who in the Theatre (Pitman, 1912, 1914, 1916, 1922, 1925, 1930, 1933, 1936, 1939, 1947, 1952, 1957, 1961, 1967, 1972)

  Pattie, David, Modern British Playwriting, the 1950s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations (Methuen, 2012)

  Pick, John, The West End: Mismanagement and Snobbery (John Offord, 1983)

  Pick, John, Vile Jelly: The Birth, Life and Lingering Death of the Arts Council of Great Britain (Brynmill Press, 1991)

  Rabellato, Dan, 1956 And All That: The Making of Modern British Drama (Routledge, 1999)

  Sanderson, Michael, From Irving to Olivier: A Social History of the Acting Profession in England 1880–1983 (Palgrave Macmillan, 1984)

  Saunders, Peter, The Mousetrap Story (St Martin’s Theatre, 1992)

  Shafer, Elizabeth, Ms-Directing Shakespeare: Women Direct Shakespeare (The Women’s Press, 1998)

  Shellard, Dominic, British Theatre Since the War (Yale University Press, UK and USA, 1999)

  Shellard, Dominic (ed.), British Theatre in the 1950s (Sheffield Academic Press, 2000)

  Shepherd, Simon, The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Theatre (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

  Shubert Archive (Maryann Chach, Reagan Fletcher, Mark E. Swartz, Syvia Wang), The Shuberts Present: 100 Years of American Theater (Harry N. Abrams, USA, 2001)

  Thorndike, Russell, Sybil Thorndike (Thornton Butterworth, 1929)

  Van Gyseghem, Andre, Theatre in Soviet Russia (Faber and Faber, 1943)

  Wearing, J.P., American and British Theatrical Biography: A Directory (Scarecrow Press, USA, 1979)

  Wearing, J.P., The London Stage, 1920–29: A Calendar of Plays and Players (Scarecrow Press, USA, 1984)

  Wearing, J.P., The London Stage, 1930–1939: A Calendar of Plays and Players (Scarecrow Press, USA, 1990)

  Wearing, J.P., The London Stage, 1940–1949: A Calendar of Plays and Players (Scarecrow Press, US, 1991)

  Wearing, J.P., The London Stage, 1950–1959: A Calendar of Plays and Players (Scarecrow Press, US, 1993)

  Wilmeth, Don B and Bigsby, Christopher (Eds) The Cambridge History of American Theatre Volume II: 1870–1945 (Cambridge University Press, 1999)

  Wilmeth, Don B and Bigsby, Christopher (Eds) The Cambridge History of American Theatre Volume III: Post-World War II to the 1990s (Cambridge University Press, 2000)

  Other books of interest

  Burke, David, The Lawn Road Flats: Spies, Writers and Artists (Boydell Press, 2014)

  Canjels, Rudmer, Distributing Silent Film Serials: Local Practices, Changing Forms, Cultural Transformation (Routledge, 2011)

  Clarke, Peter, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–1990 (Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1996)

  Dahlquist, Marina (ed.), Exporting Perilous Pauline: Pearl White and the Serial Film Craze (University of Illinois Press, USA, 2013)

  Dove, Richard, ‘Gerhard Hinze or Gerard Heinz? A Life in Two Acts’ (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, Vol 14, 2013)

  Gardiner, Juliet, The Thirties: An Intimate History (HarperPress, 2010)

  Hennessy, Peter, Never Again: Britain 1945–51 (Jonathan Cape, 1992)

  Humble, Nicola, The Feminine Middlebrow Novel, 1920s–1950s: Class, Domesticity and Bohemianism (Oxford University Press, 2001)

  Knight, Stephen, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (Macmillan, 1980)

  Kynaston, David, Austerity Britain: 1945–51 (Bloomsbury, 2007)

  Kynaston, David, Family Britain: 1951–57 (Bloomsbury, 2009)

  Kynaston, David, Modernity Britain: 1957–59 (Bloomsbury, 2013)

  Maltin, Leonard (ed.), Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide (Plume/Penguin, 2005)

  Melman, Billie, Women and the Popular Imagination in the 1920s: Flappers and Nymphs (Macmillan, 1988)

  Morgan, Kenneth O, Britain Since 1945: the People’s Peace (Oxford University Press, 1990/2001)

  Pugh, Martin, We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain Between the Wars (Bodley Head, 2008)

  Sandbrook, Dominic, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (Little, Brown, 2005)

  Steadman, Raymond William, The Serials: Suspense and Drama by Installment (University of Oklahoma Press, US, 1971)

  Weigall, Arthur, The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharoah of Egypt (Thornton Butterworth 1910/revised edition 1922)

  Other publications of interest

  Allen, M.D., ‘Barbara Toy’, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol 204: British Travel Writers 1940–1997 (Gale, USA, 1999)

  Cameron, Rebecca S., ‘Irreconcilable Differences: Divorce and Women’s Drama before 1945’ (Modern Drama, vol. 44, no. 4, 2001)

  Chambers, Diane M, ‘Triangular Desire and the Sororal Bond: The “Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill”’ (Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 29, no. 1, 1996)

  Conference of Women Theatre Directors and Administrators, The Status of Women in British Theatre 1982–1983 (Survey, 1983)

  Curran, John, ‘Black Coffee: A Mystery within a Mystery’ (Crime and Detective Stories, no. 67, 2014)

  Dalby, Richard, ‘Spotlight on Agatha Christie’, (Book and Magazine Collector, no. 174, 1998)

  Earl, John, ‘How West End Theatreland Happened’ (The Matcham Journal, edition 1, 2014)

  Harmston, Joe (Artistic Director of the Agatha Christie Theatre Company), Programme notes for the ACTC’s productions of The Hollow (2006), The Unexpected Guest (2007), And Then There Were None (2008/2015), Spider’s Web (2009), Witness for the Prosecution (2010), Verdict (2011), Murder on The Nile (2012), Go Back For Murder (2013), Black Coffee (2014) (John Good)

  Heinrich, Anselm, ‘Theatre in Britain During the Second World War’ (New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 1, 2010)

  Seal, Lizzie, ‘Public Reactions to the Case of Mary Wilson, The Last Woman to be Sentenced to Death in England and Wales’ (papers from the British Criminology Conference, vol 8, 2008)

  Torremans, Professor Paul and Castrillon, Professor Carmen Otero Garcia, ‘Reversionary Copyright: a Ghost of the Past or a Current Trap to Assignments of Copyright?’ (Intellectual Pr
operty Quarterly, no. 2, 2012)

  Wandor, Michelene, ‘The Impact of Feminism on the Theatre’, The Feminist Review, no.18, 1984

  Websites

  Doollee database of modern plays in English (doollee.com)

  The Internet Broadway database (ibdb.com)

  The Internet Movie database (imdb.com)

  The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (oxforddnb.com)

  The Theatres Trust (theatrestrust.org.uk)

  Archives visited by the author

  In the UK:

  The Christie Archive Trust (including correspondence between Agatha Christie, Max Mallowan and Rosalind Hicks; Agatha Christie’s notebooks, unpublished work and draft scripts; typescripts of the plays of Agatha Christie and M.F. Watts)

  The Peter Saunders business papers (including correspondence with Agatha Christie); extensive private collection

  The Hughes Massie/Agatha Christie archive, Exeter University (including correspondence between Edmund Cork, Harold Ober and Agatha Christie) and the Hughes Massie licensing records (card index) held at Agatha Christie Ltd

  The Lord Chamberlain’s Plays collection and the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays Correspondence files; British Library

  The H.M. Tennent Theatrical Companies Bill correspondence, the Embassy Theatre archive and the Mousetrap prompt copy, programme and press archive; Theatre and Performance Collections, Victoria and Albert Museum

  The People’s Entertainment Society archive; National Co-operative Archive, Manchester

  The Basil Dean archive (including correspondence with Agatha Christie); John Rylands Library, University of Manchester

  Hubert Gregg’s papers (including director’s notes and correspondence with Agatha Christie); small private collection

  Various records of the Embassy Theatre; Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

  In the USA:

  The Shubert Archive, New York

  The Gilbert Miller Collection: Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

  The Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

  The Theatre Collection, Museum of the City of New York

  Other archives contributing material

  Companies House archive

  Martha’s Vineyard Gazette archive, USA

  Bertie Meyer’s Agatha Christie contracts (small private collection)

  University of Bristol Theatre Collection

  Scottish Theatre Archive; Glasgow University Special Collections