Arsenic and Old Lace

Synopsis

In a quaint Victorian house in Brooklyn, Abby and Martha Brester have quietly poisoned twelve old men and buried them in the cellar. Their nephew arrives, a conman with yet another corpse and mayhem. A timeless classic on Broadway and the West End.

Our Review:

26 February 2003

For many, Joseph Kesselring Broadway comedy is remembered not as a play at all, but rather as a film classic thanks to Frank Capra's 1944 screen version starring Cary Grant.

Producer Katherine Dore and director Matthew Francis clearly decided the original needed dusting off for a re-run - housed, with a knowing nod to history, at the West End's Strand Theatre, where it had its original London season some 60 years ago - and they've assembled a pretty stellar cast to do the honours.

Onstage proceedings take place in the Brooklyn home of Abby and Martha Brewster, two delightfully batty old spinsters, played here to great effect by Thelma Barlow (Mavis from the TV soap Coronation Street) and the incomparable Marcia Warren, a woman for whom playing bonkers OAPs has become an art form after her award-winning stint last year in Humble Boy.

Abby and Martha's secret, kept from their nephew Mortimer (Drop the Dead Donkey's Stephen Tompkinson), ...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (195.8.166.28) - 28 July 2003:

Saw it on the opening night, I was very pleased with the show, not quite what I was expecting, and the opening night hiccups were evident. But the point is the show was well staged, with intentional execution that whilst seemingly stiff and jointed was a entertaining experience. I would say the star of the show was Micheal Richards, I enjoyed his twsited anticts and his final ploy to get even in the body stakes. There were a few times when I thought, wow I wonder if they will do that, and the reaction was far less stiking and more dulled, and moments where some inspiration came from nowhere. Muscial lovers who like all that jazz stay away, butfor those people who loved to see the look on a face as something dreadful or amazing dawns on them, you missed you chance!...

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