Black Coffee by Agatha Christie at the Little Theatre in Leicester

 I saw this excellent play last night, admittedly because a friend of mine is in it, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. 

Agatha Christie, as I have said many time, cannot be matched in terms of whodunit plotting, yet her prose and characterisation are lacking to the point that it is not Christie but Margery Allingham who is the Queen of Golden Age Crime Fiction.

Yet Christie’s work can nevertheless shine where actors can provide characterisation that the words on the page do not. And that is the case here. The cast is uniformly excellent, filling their performances with subtle mannerisms and line deliveries that add so much.

The set is particularly excellent, too, in a play based around a single room. And the MacGuffin- a formula for a new type of devastating atomic explosive- is quite an arresting idea for 1930.

If there are any tickets left, I would heartily recommend scrapping them up.