Don’t Take the Pith!

Set in the year Nineteen Hundred & Somerset Maugham, noted psychic Lady Susan Bloom and self-proclaimed ‘wit, rake and raconteur’ Lord Sebastian Hardcastle are summoned by The Crown to the colonial island of Not-Borneo. (It’s not a million miles away from Borneo, but it’s somewhere you definitely haven’t been and so you’re entirely unqualified to criticise our depiction of non-Western European civilisations). The talisman of the local tribe has gone missing – and the list of suspects is made up of a bunch of hilarious and excellently-defined characters… is it Lord Peter de Meur, head of the British Outpost? Or his wife, Lady Fleur de Meur? Could it be an inside- job, orchestrated by powerful and drop-dead-gorgeous Headswoman of the local tribe – Adiratna? Or her suspicious First Minister, her “No. 1” – Kanaka? Or the equally exotic Doctor Frenchman (pronounced Fronkmain), a guest on the island, with hidden motives? Or in true unexpected-Christie-style, the unassuming servant, Maud Pauper? Or – are things not quite what they seem? (Yeah, probably that)