Spider’s Web.

Having become a consistent favourite ever since opening at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal in September 1954 and enjoying a run of 774 performances at the Savoy Theatre, Agatha Christie’s play Spider’s Web is scheduled for a good run at Canberra Repertory’s Theatre 3, and with good reason. This production will give anyone cause to forget the outside world in favour of an atmosphere alive with laughter.

When Clarissa Hailsham-Brown (an irrepressibly playful Sian Harrington), Lady of Copplestone Court, discovers a body in her drawing room, she uses her practised imagination to devise a plan to enlist the aid of three guests to hide the body — and the potential scandal — in time for the arrival home of her husband, Henry (Nathan McKenna, imparting well the persona of a tolerant but somewhat harried rising public servant), with a foreign diplomat.  Clarissa’s plan unravels immediately, and somehow the police are on her doorstep soon afterward.  They’ve been alerted to a murder, and they’re not sloppy about searching for a body.

What starts out as a seeming whodunnit quickly transforms into very enjoyable farce as Clarissa uses her well-honed skills in fabrication to attempt to protect the entire household despite the “help” of her nosy gardener, Mildred, and the astuteness of police Inspector Lord (Leo Amadeus, who well conveyed an inspector under pressure but nonetheless professional).

The set, an appealing drawing room complete with views into and beyond the manor, cleverly provided both a comfortable, believable backdrop and some surprises as the mystery twisted toward its unexpected conclusion.  Spider’s Web may be Agatha Christie at her most subtle, so the production was fortunate in enjoying good direction and consistently enjoyable acting, including Adele Lewin’s performance as the all-but-unbearable gardener, Mildred Peake, cheerfully oblivious to the social niceties; Terry Johnson’s perfectly timed delivery of the upstanding measured character of Clarissa’s former guardian, Sir Rowland Delahaye; and David Bennett’s embodiment of the outwardly unflappable upper-crust butler, Elgin.  But the show succeeded because nothing at all in REPs well-handled production of this iconic play let it down, from sound effects to costumes and props to disciplined performances, and the audience relaxed into an evening of mystery, fun, and laughter.

John P. Harvey.

Image: [L–R] John Whinfield, Siân Harrington, Terry Johnson, Anthony Maine, and Adele Lewin, in Spider’s Web.  Photographer: Cathy Breen.