1. Say when you saw/read the book/film/play.
2. Describe what kind of book/film/play it was.
3. Give some information about the setting and the characters.
4. Sum up the story in 10 lines.
5. Pick one or two things you liked and say what they are. Explain why you liked them.
6. Pick one or two things you didn’t like and say what they are. Explain why you didn’t like them.

A Play report

On Tuesday March 17th, we went to La Guillotière to see a play called « Agatha Christie’s Lesson in crime. The Murders at Troughbottom Lodge” by the Oz Company.

The play was a detective story /a mystery play.

On stage, the setting presented a living-room decorated with African masks, swords, and different pieces of art.

The 2 actors, a woman and a man called Stephanie and Ken played the role of 9 characters. 

They had to change very quickly back stage and change their physical appearances and voices for each role.

The main characters were Lord Harold Throckmorton, Cecily and Reggie.

Cecily was the Lord’s daughter and Reggie’s fiancé. From the beginning of the play she appeared as a very naive and fragile young girl, deeply in love with this unscrupulous playboy.

There were also Miss Pierce, Throckmorton’s secretary, Miss Hetherington, the nosy neighbour, Tallulah Carlisle, Cecily’s aunt on her mother side and, a mysterious Egyptian art dealer.

The story opened on Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock, the masters in suspens who were holding a Convention on how to write a crime novel. They were here to explain the audience what happened during the play, present the characters, help the audience to understand the plot.

The plot started 6 months after the death of Lady Laeticia Throckmorton, Cecily’s mother and Lord Throckmorton’s wife in very strange circumstances. She was found dead in the family’s swimming-pool. Cecily wanted to marry Reggie against her father’s will. Her mother had also disapproved of her choice.

We very quickly understood that her parents were right because Reggie cheated on Cecily: Mrs Pierce was his mistress and they wanted to steal the young girl’s money. Cecily asked her aunt Tallulah Carlisle to come and help her convince her father to allow her wedding but Tallulah was also here to investigate her sister’s crime. She suspected Lord Throckmorton to be responsible for his wife’s death.

When the neighbour, Miss Hetherington came upon Reggie and Mrs Pierce and wanted to inform Cecily, the old lady had a very strange accident in her garden and finally died.

A mysterious art dealer, Vickram Sawhney got in touch with Lord Throckmorton to sell him 3 Egyptian statuettes. We understood he was hired by Tallulah to investigate on her sister’s death.

Cecily understood her father would never let her marry Reggie and in the evening an anonymous hand poured some liquid into the Lord’s bottle of Port.

When Lord Throckmorton offered a drink to Tallulah, she drank first and immediately fell on the floor, dead.

Finally, when someone shot Lord Throckmorton right in front of Reggie’s eyes, we discovered a crazy Cecily who confessed to having killed her mother!

Reggie violently told her he didsn’t love her and wouldn’t accept her murders so she also killed him!

The play ended with Cecily, sobbing on her lover’s body, alone. 

I really liked the way the 2 actors played their different roles and changed their voices or accents because they were fantastic.

I also liked the plot because we couldn’t imagine Cecily to be the murderer until the very end of the play.

I didn’t like very much all the dances and songs because they did not really participate in the plot.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed seeing this play from the Oz Company.