DEAR AGATHA

Amongst my missing detective books, while there were some classic Dorothy Sayer's, there were no Agatha Christie paperbacks. I read them as a teenager but never again. Susan, on the other hand, has DVDs of almost every Agatha Christie book that has ever been filmed and we have just watched the two most recent series: Towards Zero and Murder is Easy (both - unsurprisingly - on Britbox). Susan won't watch any of my international noir mysteries but it doesn't matter how many bodies are scattered under English hedgerows or in the palour of English manors, she's tuned in to that world.

While I have learnt to appreciate a well filmed drama with well loved English actors in such series, I have always struggled with staged version's of Agatha Christie's work, particularly in Australia. In all those annual journeys to London when I was at MTC, I never bothered to see The Mousetrap. And now, I'm faced with having to comment on the Australian production of And Then There Were None. 

It's full of some of my favourite actors - Grant Piro, Christen O'Leary, Nicholas Hammond - and directed by the brilliant Robyn Nevin but I just don't see the point. Ten bodies in the space of two and half hours. Really? However, I was clearly in a minority of one because as Susan and I left the theatre at the end of the opening night, all I could I hear was "awewsome", "amazing", "great night", "so much fun". Perhaps I should have stayed at home and watched another dense Scandi-noir thriller such as The Glass Dome (Netflix) or an Italian Mafia mystery such as Cold Summer (SBS) or a Polish murder mystery such as The Teach (SBS) or a Scottish/Swedish number such as Department Q. I like some distance between my murders. One or two a series does me....unlike Ms Christie at her best (worst).



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