Just two weeks til Bay Theatre Players’ audiences get the chance to unravel the classic ‘whodunnit’, ‘A Murder is Announced’, by Agatha Christie and adapted for the stage by Leslie Darbon.
‘A Murder is Announced’ will preview on 2 July. Tickets are available now from Bargain Box (4472 5984). There are only ten performances, so come and reserve your seat early!
Lines are being learned, characters are being developed, costumes are being tried on and where necessary either re-modelled or completely remade.
Above: Janet Kohler-Bond and Roy Smith at rehearsal this week perfecting their lines and their accents.
The set is almost complete, courtesy of set designer, Sam Lloyd and set building team Eric Haslam and Geoff Philpott.
‘Murder’, BTP’s second production for the year, is set in Britain in November, in the early 1950s, a very different world from today. November afternoons, then and now, are a fairly dark and cold time. Central heating was almost unheard of, and the rationing of coal, which most people used to heat their homes, and indeed in many cases, cook, still had another two years to run.
So come along to the Playhouse, drift back in time more than half a century, listen to some cool 1950s jazz and attempt to work out ‘whodunnit’.
The play begins when a strange notice appears in the morning paper of a perfectly ordinary small English village, Chipping Cleghorn: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday, October 29th, at Little Paddocks, at 6:30 p.m. Friends accept this, the only intimation.’ This comes as a great surprise to Letitia Blacklock, the owner of Little Paddocks, as she has no idea what the notice means; she didn't place it and none of her companions knows more than she. Miss Blacklock decides to take it in her stride and prepares herself to have guests that evening. Naturally, the villagers are intrigued by this notice, and several of them appear on the doorstep with awkward reasons but a definite interest. As the clock strikes 6:30, the lights go out and a door swings open………. Preview @ 2:00pm Sunday 2 July Matinees @ 2:00pm 9, 15, 16 July Evenings @ 7:30pm 8, 13, 14, 20, 21, 22 July Tickets are available now from Bargain Box (4472 5984)
