Spider’s Web (Tour – Wirral)

Floral Pavilion, New Brighton

25 – 30 May 2009

Agatha Christie’s Spider’s Web was written in 1954 specifically with Margaret Lockwood in mind. As a result, with this production, it easy to imagine some of the doyens of the silver screen’s Golden Age being delighted to be involved, such is the slick manner in which the mystery is played out and the fabulous timing of the comedy made famously in Ealing Studios.

The cast are all superb. Melanie Gutteridge playing Clarissa, has just the right amount of mischief, bemoaning the fact that nobody ever believes her, especially during the explanation as to how she discovered the body in the drawing room, with such overstated gusto it brings spontaneous laughter and applause in waves from the audience.

Excellent, too, is Denis Lill as Inspector Lord, who’s befuddlement at what he has stumbled into is worthy of any hapless cop who might appear in a Basil Rathbone film of the late thirties. Bruce Montague is Clarissa’ wily guardian, Sir Rowland Delahaye, and fills the role with sparkling dialogue and ubiquitous timing, and Casualty’s own Catherine Shipton (she used to play Duffy in the TV drama) as the nosey, interfering gardener Miss Peake is clearly an actor who has rolled all of the stereotypes of such characters together and produced something that is wholly original and astonishingly entertaining.

Yet it is those on the sidelines who make this show what it is. Mark Rose’s delivery as Constable Jones is priceless, Karen Elliot’s young Pippa is every inch a Hyacinth Bucket in the making and Matthew Hebden’s Oliver Costello, the victim, may well only have been on stage a short while, but nevertheless seeps foulness in a way that makes people shudder.

With a set that almost outshines even this magnificently rebuilt theatre and with a lot of laughs mixed up amongst the murder, this is one show that the Floral Pavilion can be just proud of bringing to Wirral in the fervent hope that there will be many more to follow in its wake.

– by Chris High