Go Back for Murder

Synopsis

Opened at the Duchess Theatre in London on 23 March 1960. Does the letter given to Carla by the family solicitor hold the answer to her mother Caroline's death in prison, after being incarcerated for the murder of her husband. Was she really guilty? Carla sets about solving the puzzle by turning detective and questions all the people present on that day 16 years ago. Will her mother prove to be innocent?

Our Review:

Anne Morley-Priestman - 4 March 2013

An Agatha Christie novel of 1942 (which she dramatised in 1960) presents something of a time-shift problem for the director. Joe Harmston has attempted to find a solution by updating the framing action to 1968 – that year of political and social upheavals – and the second-act flashback to 1948 – as wartime austerity began to soften into something approaching peacetime normality.

It should swathe the whole mystery with a sense of authenticity. It doesn't. The plot itself is an intriguing one; the daughter of a convicted murderess seeks to establish the truth behind her father's death by contacting the five other people who were in the house when he died.

The set itself is an all-purpose one (Simon Scullion) initially behind a gauze. Brigid Guy's costumes should appear to be normal clothes as worn by the well-to-do of both decades, but somehow remain just costumes. There's a soundscape by Matthew Bugg] which comes into its own as...

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