WHERE IS MRS. CHRISTIE ? THE MYSTERY OF AGATHA CHRISTIE'S ELEVEN LOST DAYS

Review in ‘The Stage’.

The mysterious eleven-day disappearance of Agatha Christie during the nineteen-twenties, an object of fascinating speculation worthy of one of her own detective thrillers, is the source of this one-woman touring production by the Worcester Rep Company. Author Chris Jaeger cunningly turns the "whodunnit" into a "whydunnit" with Agatha herself as narrator, defendant, and defence counsel. It is the delicate, often ironical interplay between these roles that makes for such compelling viewing. . .

All aspects of Mrs. Christie's life, as author, mother, daughter, wife and literary celebrity are explored with candour, confessional, conspiratorial roguishness and waspish wit. Narrative tension is expertly sustained as, like Hamlet, Agatha refuses to let anyone "pluck out the heart of her mystery". This is anything but a hagiographical portrait and all the more engaging for it.

Liz Grand's performance in the title role is compelling. So persuasive is she that we the audience become co-conspirators. Her Mrs. Christie is irresistibly engaging, vulnerable, confiding and ultimately indomitable in her strength of spirit. It is a master-class in nuanced delivery and dramatic timing, deliberately tantalising, directed unfussily and designed for spot-on period fidelity.

4****