This is a Frank Vosper play adapted from a short Agatha Christie mystery, Love from a Stranger and I’ve been really looking forward to seeing it. A Fiery Angel and Royal & Derngate Northampton Co-Production, it has all the fun of the traditional Christie storyline that keeps the audience on the edge of our seats right to the end!
The story begins with Cecily (Helen Bradbury), her friend Mavis (Alice Haig), and Cecily’s indomitable Auntie Lou-Lou (Nicola Sanderson) preparing Cecily’ and Mavis’s flat for rent. Cecily’s fiancé is due back from three years in the Sudan, but Cecily, who yearns to travel and see the world, is uncertain about marrying Michael and settling down in a house in the country. As she deliberates about her future, a handsome stranger comes to rent the property and changes everything.
This is a clever piece of theatre, dark and gripping, almost more Hitchcock than Christie. Although the play is mainly driven by the storytelling, there is a lot of depth to Cecily, the central character. We are drawn into her struggle to reconcile her affection for her fiancé with the fact that she doesn’t love him. Her sudden influx of wealth gives her an unexpected independence, which doesn’t sit comfortably with her friends and family, who wish she would accept the role of wife and home-maker expected of her by society, rather than to fulfil her dreams of travel and adventure. This subtext of social and sexual politics runs alongside the additional issues surrounding class and colonialism, and all of this combines to give the play an emotional richness not always present in a classic ‘thriller’.
But this play is rather thrilling. Much of the play’s intensity stems from the acting of Sam Frenchum, who plays the mysterious stranger, Bruce Lovell. Lovell charms Cecily from the start, and yet we feel unsettled by his odd behaviour and mood swings. The staging adds to the unsettled feeling, with a series of moving or see-through partitions, allowing the audience to see what is happening in ‘the next room’ when the characters cannot. The use of red light bulbs and surging music keeps adding an edge to the performance.
If you want to spend an evening being pleasantly alarmed, I highly recommend seeing Love from a Stranger: a well-paced tale filled with Christie’s signature twists. ★★★★☆ @BookingAround at Oxford Playhouse on 21st March 2018
