Canberra REP has transitioned to digital programs, phasing out our colour printed A5 booklets at the end of Season 2024.
Please note that the complimentary flyer is designed as a Play Bill - more information is available below.
SPIDER'S WEB
by Agatha Christie
director Ylaria Rogers
An Amateur production By Arrangement with ORiGiN (TM) Theatrical on behalf of Samuel french Inc. A Concord Theatricals Company
CAST • CREATIVES • PRODUCTION • TEAMS • DONORS | SUPPORTERS
SYNOPSIS
Classic Christie
Clarissa, wife of a diplomat, is adept at spinning tales of adventure but when a murder takes place in her drawing room she finds live drama much harder to cope with. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband arrives with an important politician, she enlists the help of her guests. Hilarity ensues when they are interrupted by the arrival of wry detective, Inspector Lord.
A conscious parody of the detective thriller, Christie delivers a unique blend of suspense and humour. There is tension and laughter in equal parts in an intricate plot of murder, police, drug addicts, invisible ink, hidden doorways and secret drawers.
What could possibly go wrong?
WHERE
The action of the play passes in the drawing-room of Copplestone Court, the Hailsham-Browns' home in Kent.
ACT I
An evening in March
ACT II
Scene 1 - A quarter of an hour later
Acene 2 - Ten Minutes later
ACT III
A few minutes laater
RUN TIME
120 minutes - plus one 20 minute interval
Bar service available up to 5 minutes before start of ACT I, at interval & after the performance
PRODUCTION WARNING
Depiction of foul play
PLAYWRIGHT • Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was born into an upper middle class family in 1890. She started writing at age 18, but was rejected by publishers repeatedly. In 1914 she married Archibald Christie, a Royal Flying Corps member, during a break in his wartime service. During the war she worked as a member of the British Red Cross. In 1916 she wrote her first detective novel, The Mysterious Adventure at Styles, starring Hercule Poirot, inspired by the Belgian refugees and soldiers she met during the war. The original manuscript was rejected but after agreeing to change the ending, the revised novel was published in 1920. She would end up publishing 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, Poirot appearing in exactly half the novels and over 50 short stories despite Christie declaring him in interviews “insufferable” and “an egocentric creep”. The more modest Miss Marple would appear in 12 novels and 20 short stories.
In 1926, after a deep depression caused by the death of her mother and her husband’s request for a divorce, she disappeared for 11 days, causing national controversy. Agatha never fully explained the disappearance, and a version of the event appeared in the 1979 film Agatha, starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave, and more inventively in the 2008 Doctor Who episode, The Unicorn and the Wasp.
By 1928 she was divorced and began to travel, taking the Orient Express to Istanbul and Baghdad, becoming friends with two archaeologists – visiting their dig in February 1930 – she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, who she would marry six months later and remain with until her death. She would continue to accompany him on his excavations and use their travels as a basis for some of her novels.
In 1928 her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was adapted by another writer for the stage as Alibi, starring Charles Laughton. She disliked the changes the script made to her story, and decided to write for the stage herself – starting with an original Poirot play, Black Coffee in 1930. 16 plays followed, some based on her novels (And then There were None in 1943, Appointment with Death in 1945, The Hollow in 1951), others from short stories or original works.
In the 1950s she would have three plays running simultaneously in the west end - The Mousetrap started in 1952 (recently passing 30,000 performances on 19 March 2025), Witness for the Prosecution in 1953 and Spider's Web in 1954.
Spider’s Web was requested by star Margaret Lockwood, who wanted a role in a comedy-thriller after a career in films like The Wicked Lady and The Lady Vanishes – Christie obliged with the character of Clarissa, named after Christie’s mother. It ran for 774 performances (her second longest running play), with multiple adaptations including a TV version in 1955 with Lockwood and a 1982 version with Penelope Keith. It is an original play but draws plot devices from four earlier works – the short stories The Adventure of the Cheap Flat, The Case of the Buried Treasure, and King of Clubs and the novel Evil Under the Sun.
In her autobiography, Christie said "Plays are much easier to write than books, because you can see them in your mind's eye, you are not hampered by all that description which clogs you so terribly in a book and stops you from getting on with what's happening." All up she would write 16 plays, including the unperformed Egyptian epic Akhnaton.
She remains popular with readers and audiences all over the world, with multiple cinema and TV adaptations, including adaptations of 36 of her stories in the French series Les Petits Meurtes d’Agatha Christie (The Little Murders of Agatha Christie) and a Japanese anime adaptation as Agasa Kurisutī no Meitantei Powaro to Māpuru (Agatha Christie’s Great Detectives Poirot and Marple) which links Marple and Poirot by having Marple’s great-niece, Maybelle West, become Poirot’s junior assistant, alongside her pet duck Oliver.
She passed away in 1976 at age 85.
compiled by Simon Tolhurst
