Review – A Sinner Kissed an Angel, Merge Theatre Company, University of Northampton Flash Festival, St Peter’s Church, Northampton, 22nd May 2017

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It’s that time again when the 3rd Year students of Acting at Northampton University launch their Flash Festival. It’s like a mini-Edinburgh fringe, and each of the productions counts as the dissertation towards the students’ degrees. Last year I saw some Flash Festival plays and I was very impressed. This year I’m hoping to see all fifteen on offer: four on Monday, four on Tuesday, three on Wednesday, two on Thursday and two on Friday. I’m already behind with my blogging, so it might be a while before I write about them all – but bear with me! There are three venues for these plays – St Peter’s Church (evocative and they’ve built the stage platform higher so previous poor sightlines are now much improved), Hazelrigg House (many different sized rooms there offering a variety of acting spaces) and the Salvation Army centre on Tower Street.

To open my Flash Festival experience this year, I started with A Sinner Kissed an Angel performed by the Merge Theatre Company. This is the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, for the murder of her lover, David Blakely, in July 1955. She was 28. I remember hearing from my mother, the Late Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle, how the atmosphere on that day was very sombre. Everyone was quiet and reflective, and there were many who thought this was an inappropriate death sentence; and to this day, Ruth Ellis is a figure of some intrigue and curiosity.

The play starts with the climax, in a sense – the scene just before she murders Blakely; and then goes back to her early life, tracing the relationships, the friendships and her descent into a lawless and immoral environment where murder would seem like a fair option, given the circumstances. Regularly interrupting the progressing story of Ruth’s life, we have three “Good Housekeeping”/”Dear Marje” type ladies, with their infomercial/magazine columns advising women on how to do the best for their men, and how to cope with darker and darker situations. These scenes make for an entertaining juxtaposition with the general sadness of Ruth’s life.

Olivia Sarah Jayne Noyce takes to the role of Ruth like a duck to water, looking every inch the part and strongly conveying the character’s wilfully coquettish nature. Ruth knows what she wants and she’s going to get it. Miss Noyce is great at showing Ruth’s obstinate, manipulative and demanding characteristics, whilst all the time looking like butter wouldn’t melt. A very good performance. I also really enjoyed watching Jennifer Etherington as her friend Vicki; she has a very authoritative vocal delivery which made me absolutely believe her character, and her diction was also very clear which is an attribute I always value.

Connor McCreedy’s Blakely had a very sinister, threatening style; wheedling his way into Ruth’s affections, infuriatingly self-mocking, and, quite frankly, thoroughly deserving to get murdered. He was also the source of some excellent on-stage fisticuffs – very nicely handled. Jenny Watson was a very likeable and believable Muriel, amusingly stomping through the dance to grab her sister and expressing genuine concern for her safety and wellbeing; and admirably tackling the tougher prospect of playing another of Ruth’s paramours, Desmond. All four actors also shared the roles of the “Good Housekeeping” ladies – and their change of tone and style for those scenes was very crisp and funny – even if at times you had to swallow your laugh because the material was so brutal.

Overall, a very good production that told its story clearly and intelligently, performed with precision and wit. Congratulations all!

Review – Lettice and Lovage, Menier Chocolate Factory, 21st May 2017

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Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage first hit the stage way back in 1987 as a star vehicle for Maggie Smith. I knew that we had seen the play before but I was darned if I could remember seeing la grande dame in the role – I am sure I would have remembered. I can just imagine how she would have grasped it with – well everything you can grasp with.

Move forward another twenty years and none other than Sir Trevor Nunn has directed a spanking new production in the intimate charm of the Menier Chocolate Factory and cast two theatrical favourites – Felicity Kendal and Maureen Lipman. Perfect for this almost two-hander, theatrically genteel boxing match between the guide who embellishes the history of the dullest Stately Home in the country to make it remotely interesting, and the battleaxe from the Preservation Trust who sacks her.

To be honest, it’s a very slight play and I’m surprised that both Sir Trev and the Menier were that interested in reviving it. It doesn’t do much to illuminate the human condition, although it does appeal to the YOLO generation, as Lettice and Lottie cast care to the wind and become the least likely pals since Margaret Thatcher and Eric Heffer. The play did remind me of the late Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle who for several years post-retirement was a room warden at the National Trust’s property at Waddesdon Manor, and who took great delight in finding out as much about the treasures on display as possible – but there’s nothing more challenging than being asked a question to which you don’t know the answer, and having a fertile imagination can make the experience even more enjoyable!

Fortunately, this production benefits from two totally delightful performances which make the two and a half hours plus absolutely fly by. No linguistic contortion is too strained for Felicity Kendal’s Lettice, as she recollects the dear old days of supporting her mother and father on the stage, an eccentric Bohemienne to her fingertips, concocting potent jugs of 16th century punch distilled from lovage and eye of bat. Similarly, Maureen Lipman wallows in her opportunity to be the frosty frowsy bossy boss, ridiculing her underlings, putting up with no nonsense, but just wondering if it is time to (nearly literally) let her hair down. Maybe the excellence of the two main performances highlights the patchiness of some of the supporting ensemble, not that that spoils your enjoyment of the play.

Slight, but funny; you won’t talk about the characters’ motivations or the thematic structure of the play on the way home, but you might well crack up reminiscing about Miss Lipman’s wonderful drunk act or Miss Kendal’s heartier-than-thou ham-Shakespearean verbal dexterity. If ever they cast Women Behaving Badly, they need look no further. The entire run is now sold out, but I doubt if this production, unlike some of the Menier’s other recent successes, would warrant a transfer. Sorry guys, if you’re not already booked, you’ve missed it.

P. S. We didn’t see the original production. I remember now – we saw a production in 1997 with two other Dear Ladies who gave it an equally good grasp – yes, Dr Evadne Hinge and Dame Hilda Bracket. And if you can remember what Hinge and Bracket were like in their prime – I can confirm they were really very funny.

Review – Tez Ilyas, Made in Britain, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 20th May 2017

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We have a specific spot we like to sit for the comedy shows at the Underground, gentle reader. They normally have two banks of chairs – three or four rows at the front, then a gap, then the seats at the back. I like to take the back row of the front bank – and sit on the aisle – that way you’re close enough to the action to feel involved but sufficiently far away not to get roped in. Usually. Imagine my disappointment on entering the Underground for Saturday night’s Tez Ilyas show to discover the front bank of chairs was just one row deep. A front row glistening in glamorous isolation. No chance. We instinctively sat on the front row of the back seats. No one sat in front of us.

Enter Mr Ilyas for his welcoming introduction. I knew what he was going to say. Our seating positions as a group were not acceptable. He said he’d turn his back and count from 1 – 10 in Urdu and when he turned around he expected everyone to have moved one row forward. He did so. And so did we! It was a very nice start to our audience/performer relationship: he delivered, we responded. One thing though – it meant we were catapulted to the front row. Dang my breeches!

We saw Tez when he did Screaming Blue Murder here last October, when he mistook Northampton for Peterborough (ouch!) and then slagged off our cricket team (double ouch!!) – and it’s fascinating to discover that he remembered those schoolboy errors, as though they keep coming back like a nightmare. I reckon Mr I probably keeps a collection of his faux pas in a box under the stairs and takes them out every so often for a happy reminisce – he strikes me as that kind of guy.

But that’s probably at the heart of why his stand-up is so endearing. He comes across as just a regular guy; no airs or graces, no persona he’s hiding behind – just the real him and as a result you feel as though you really understand him and his life after an hour and a half in his presence. Most other comedians I’ve seen and enjoyed weave imaginary material into their real-life experience to create a funnier version of the truth. But you get the feeling that absolutely everything Mr I says is the truth, and nothing but. Even if it isn’t, and he’s pulling the wool over our eyes, that’s a real gift.

I use the word “welcoming” in the second paragraph in two ways; first, it was a general welcome as we’d just arrived, none of us had met and he was being polite and offering the comic equivalent of canapes and cocktails. (No cocktails; alcohol has never passed his lips. Well, almost never…) But his style is also welcoming; he doesn’t ever make you feel uncomfortable, even when he’s talking directly to you (who’s my MP? What am I drinking? What’s my favourite Disney film? Where do I rank ISIS on the scale of despicability? I confessed all) You imagine at home he’d be the most gracious host. He seems genuinely chuffed that we came out to see him.

After he’d got us at our ease – and we’d played musical chairs – he introduced us to his support act, the fantastic Guz Khan. We’d seen Mr Khan with Johnny Vegas at the Leicester Comedy Festival earlier in the year and he’s a revelation. An ex-teacher, you know with that commanding presence the kids would have sat up and listened (well, I would have). He has brilliant material harking back to his school teaching days; but also really clever edgy observations such as the surprise use for a WhatsApp group and also his unconditional love for all his children. Mrs Chrisparkle and I were genuinely delighted when we realised he was coming on, and he went down a storm. Even if he did say I laughed like Jimmy Savile. (I don’t.)

The second part of the show was solo Tez, taking us through his life and experiences and opening up a whole new understanding between different racial backgrounds and cultural practices – but underlining that we’re all Made in Britain. He plays with his name; we are his Tezbians, even though at home he is not Tehzeeb; he said it meant the Scourge of Beelzebub or something like that but I Googled it and what he didn’t say is that it’s a girl’s name, so no wonder. He has telling, competitive material about not being mistaken for an Indian – catering industry observations aside. He points out the nonsense (that I’d never considered) that the Jungle Book characters are all voiced with classical western accents (viz. “Shere Khan: How delightful”) – how stupid is that? He talks about his unlikely but ultimately disappointing experience with Tinder and I absolutely get where he’s coming from. And there’s so much more. Primarily you come away with an understanding of how the openly Asian Tez has precisely the same aspirations, foibles and concerns as anyone else – including that tricky subject of how you refer to another race. Personally, I really don’t like the phrase “people of colour” because we’ve all got a colour of sorts, so what the hell does that mean? Tez has his own observations on this and some rather delectably embarrassing examples. But I’m not going to tell you about all his material because a) I can’t remember it, b) it’s not mine to tell and c) it’ll ruin it for the rest of you. Trust me though that the time flies by.

Very likeable, very funny and with instantly recognisable observations about how we all rub along together – or not. Truly the comedy of revelation; you may well come out of this show a different person from the one who went in, and there is no finer compliment I can pay to a performer! There are only a few more dates left in his tour but he’s got a new show coming up in Edinburgh this summer and I’m pretty sure we’ll be catching it. Highly recommended!

Review – The Grapes of Wrath, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 16th May 2017

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I bought Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (intimidatingly big fat book) and Of Mice and Men (welcomingly slim volume) when I was 16 with the intention of improving my mind, and let’s face it, it needed a helluva lot of improvement. At the time I found novels really hard going, so these were always going to be a challenge. They went with me everywhere; I took them to university; I took them to my second university (yeah, I know, you wouldn’t credit it); I took them to my first flat; my first house; my second house; my third house; and when it came to moving yet again, this time we had to downsize and a lot of my books got taken to charity shops. The Grapes of Wrath was one such sacrifice. And I confess, gentle reader, in all that time I never read it. I’ve still never read Of Mice and Men either, but that’s easier to accommodate.

Still, I’ve read the synopsis on Wikipedia, so that’s a start; and I can confirm that Frank Galati’s stage version, that ran for 188 performances on Broadway in 1990, is very faithful to the original book. It’s a massive tale, overflowing with pathos, with powerful themes of tolerance, injustice, and loyalty; it’s an environment where banks evict you from your property through no fault of your own, you’re lucky if you can get a zero hours contract and where fat cats grow fatter by exploiting the weakest of society. Thus it’s still incredibly relevant for our own time. There’s a large cast of distinctive characters whose dilemmas and reactions intrigue and surprise you. Put all that into a stage adaptation and it’s got to be great, hasn’t it? Hasn’t it?

I have to be honest to one of my theatrical mantras which is that I’d prefer to see a brave failure than a lazy success. I love to be challenged in the theatre by off the wall ideas that may not work but you can see how the creative team were maybe trying to subvert material, or question responses. Even if at the end of the day it doesn’t work, it’s much more rewarding than a bland drawing room comedy just phoned in by a complacent cast.

This, however, is something completely different. It’s theatre, Jim, but not as we know it. I ask myself if director Abbey Wright is trying to obstruct us from simple story-telling, because so much of what happens on stage really gets in the way of the plot. The play opens to a man playing a saw like a cello. To be fair, he does it expertly. The note he plays gets taken up by other members of the band, and it’s just minutely off-key. That sets the tone for the rest of the performance. Discordant, random music that doesn’t in any way please the ear bursts in when you don’t expect or want it. The car salesmen are ludicrously represented by three of the cast on adjustable aluminium stilts. The boy, whose father is dying in the final scene, is wearing a Superman outfit. Another of the nameless travellers the Joad family encounter on the way to California is wearing a T-shirt with the legend “Are we there yet?” (Is that meant to be funny?) and yet another, who’s in charge of one of the camps, is wearing a high vis jacket, very 1930s. The hordes of people all hoping for a better life are standing silently still within a screen looking for all the world like The Girl with all the Gifts’ Hungries, only better dressed. In a scene I found excruciatingly embarrassing, the cast members all perform a ridiculous dance routine, marked by stylised jerky movements and to what purpose? Simply because they could?

Important scenes take place on a terribly lit stage so you can barely work out who is talking to whom. Perhaps worst of all, the final, moving, image of the dying man being nursed by Rose of Sharon is totally ruined by the clunking of the movement of the set back into position. Surely there could have been some way to avoid this? It was like a phone going off at the vital moment in a funeral. The production is absolutely crammed with these bizarre, jarring intrusions, so I can only assume this is a deliberate form of unsettling the audience, as if the simple story of the Joad family wasn’t unsettling enough. In fact, I feel the production does not give the Joads and their acquaintances the respect they deserve.

An additional side-effect of the terrible situation they find themselves in, is that the characters are, for the most part, beaten by life, destroyed by circumstances; and, unsurprisingly this knocks the wind out of their sails. The cast convey this devastation very accurately by constantly talking in monotone; and, as a result, it is literally monotonous to watch. There’s very little flexibility to their vocal range – they’re down at mouth and down at voice too. There’s only one scene where there’s any real sense of life, and that’s where Tom, Al and Noah go swimming in the river – admittedly a very nice piece of stagecraft, and you may get splashed in the first three rows.

There was also a strange disconnect between some of the actors – as though they had rehearsed their speeches alone, independently, and this was the first time they had met and put their lines together. With a few notable exceptions, it very much felt like “A: It is a tough life we have here.” (Pause – over to you, B ) “B: Yes, you are right, extremely tough, don’t you agree, C?” (Pause – expectant look at C) “C: You took the words out of my mouth, B.” And so on. Exceptions to this were a beautiful, thoughtful, flowing performance by Julia Swift as Ma, straining to keep the family together at all cost, and a delightfully wry performance by Brendan Charleson as Casy, the preacher who took the benefits of his position but has now moved on. Daniel Booroff, also, gave some refreshing quirkiness to his characters of Noah and Jim Rawley at Weedpatch.

A compelling tale of human determination done a grave disservice by a clumsy, clunky production. Mrs Chrisparkle wondered if it hadn’t had time to “bed in” yet, but it’s already been to Southampton, Nottingham and West Yorkshire Playhouse, let alone being in its final week in Northampton, so it can’t be that. A brave failure? I’m not sure. I just didn’t get the vision behind the production at all; and of all the 50-odd Made in Northampton plays I’ve seen over the last eight years this is the most “amateur” in the pejorative sense of the word. Gives me no pleasure at all to say that!

Review – Christian Kluxen Conducts Tchaikovsky, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 14th May 2017

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Time for us to welcome back the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra once again for an evening of Italian, German and Russian music. Our conductor for this concert was the exuberant Christian Kluxen, one of those guys who really gets behind the music and cajoles every nuance out of the orchestra with every flex of his body. We’d not had the pleasure of Mr Kluxen’s company before, so I can only assume the photo on the programme is a little out of date; since then he has grown a full hipster beard so that he now resembles the Fred Sirieix of the Classical Scene.

They weren’t accepting interval orders at the bar (sigh) which can only mean one thing – a short first half. Our first piece of music was the famous William Tell overture by Rossini, with its irredeemably nostalgic final movement that reminds patrons of a certain age of the Lone Ranger. It’s easy though to forget the three other sequences that lead up to the finale, with its beautiful dawn opening – fantastic work by the cellos, the dazzling thunderstorm that follows, and the pastoral calm of the third part. But the final section must break through and does so almost before the pastoral has finished, and from there on it’s guns-ablazin’ and horses at the gallop. A delightful way to open the concert and the orchestra absolutely had it nailed.

Next was Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No 1 in G Minor, Op. 25. A piano soloist on the programme always causes a hiatus as the violins have to scatter to make way for the Steinway to be wheeled on. Meanwhile, the displaced musicians huddle round the back of the stage like they’re sneaking a fag break. It’s a very bizarre sight, but I guess there is no alternative. Enter Martin Roscoe on stage, an unshowy, quiet looking man with a sensible attitude to sheet music (i.e. he has it on display and continually looks at it) but who nevertheless unleashes passion at the keyboard when it’s required. The concerto is full of stunning tunes that Mr Roscoe hones and cares for as he coaxes them off the keys, and he is a true master of his instrument.

Because it is a short piece (and that is why we couldn’t pre-order interval drinks) Mr Roscoe took pity on the assembled crowd and gave us an encore: June, from Tchaikovsky’s Seasons, to whet our appetite for the second half symphony. I’d never heard this before and thought it was absolutely sublime. A simple, haunting barcarolle, I’m going to have to add it to my collection of classical CDs.

After the interval (yes we did get our drinks) we returned for Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 6 (Pathétique). It’s a bold, exciting work with a number of themes that everyone recognises, that build to a dramatic climax. Most people thought the end of the third movement heralded the end of the symphony and started some rapturous applause; but no, the twist in the tale is that there’s a fourth and final movement that disconcertingly trades down from the triumph of the previous movement and ends not with a bang but a whimper. Such a mournful end will always be associated with the fact that Tchaikovsky himself died only nine days after conducting its debut performance. Those last few notes of the symphony were played so movingly by the RPO that the audience was stunned into silence, not wishing to break the moment by applauding. I think we were in a shared state of shock. A fantastic performance by the Royal Philharmonic that has made me go back to my recordings to listen again to some of these pieces and to want to explore anew – and I don’t think there can be any finer recommendation to a concert than that!

The RPO will be back in June with some more Mendelssohn and Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony – should be a blinder!

Eurovision Song Contest, Errol Flynn Filmhouse, Northampton, 13th May 2017

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This was indeed the 62nd annual Eurovision Song Contest and I’ve been waving them on, man and boy, ever since the 12th. Fifty years of Eurovision… I should be entitled to a medal. Well, forty-nine really, as the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle took me on holiday to Cyprus during Eurovision week in 1974, much to my frustration; in those days I didn’t have the ability to record the show, so it all passed me by. Did anyone famous win that year?

You may have been forgiven, gentle reader, for thinking that this year’s Euroshindig took place in Kyiv, Ukraine. Not a bit of it. The real action was at the Errol Flynn Filmhouse, Northampton. Mrs Chrisparkle and I, together with Lord and Lady Prosecco, Mr and Mrs Jolly-Japester and Northampton’s own Mr Flying-the-Flag (and Mrs Flag) were in attendance. The sumptuous and (almost) new Screen 2 played host to another evening of wine, women, song, political intrigue, scandal, dubious taste, and snacks.

Among those women was BBC Radio Northampton’s very own Helen Blaby, all bedecked in sparkly sequins. She hosted the evening for us, judging the Fancy Dress contest (the three French girls won) and acting as the Jon Ola Sand of the East Midlands in ensuring our voting procedure took place fair and square. No embarrassing “can we please have your votes;” “I don’t have it” moments for us; although they did run out of Velcro.

Someone who didn’t win the Fancy Dress contest was a gentleman in a wheelchair, who said he’d come as Julia from Russia. Nice mickey-taking indeed, although he didn’t get her hair right. You’ll know that wheelchair-using Julia was refused entry into Ukraine by the state officials as she had previously performed at a concert in Crimea without permission – and Ukrainian law states that she could not enter the country as a result. The EBU, who run Eurovision, have no power to override a country’s laws but they were disappointed at Ukraine’s stance. All a ploy by Russia, of course, to make Ukraine look bad; in an attempt to make her performance possible, it was suggested she could perform by satellite from Moscow, but that was dismissed outright by the Russians. Therefore, no Russia this year. In an act of extreme contrition, on the evening of the semi-final where Julia would otherwise have been competing in the ESC, she attended another concert instead – in Crimea. Honestly it’s like putting the Krym in criminal. Julia is already nominated as Russia’s performer for the 2018 contest in Lisbon. Let’s hope she tries to sing the same song and is disqualified on the grounds that it was published before 1st September 2017. As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve no sympathy with Russia on this issue. They should have thought about it before aggressively invading another country.

The Errol is a great place to see the contest – it’s so comfortable, with a great sound system, and a great selection of food and drink. We even have our own hashtag – #Errolvision. I love the fact that you can take a proper bottle of wine into the cinema with you. No plastic cups, no trashy junk; it treats you like an adult. For the Eurovision, they do the usual game of “let’s bring out some appropriate food and drink for some of the countries” – so we were treated to (if I remember rightly) falafels for Israel, Babybels for Netherlands, Pinot Grigio (chilled individual bottles) for Italy, Fish ‘n’ Chip flavoured snacks for the UK, Black Forest Gateau for Germany, tzatziki for Greece; there may have been more. And, as hinted earlier on, we also have our own voting procedure where everybody has a douze points sticker and a nul points sticker and they award them to whichever countries they like and dislike most. My douze = Italy; my nul = Croatia; Mrs C’s douze = Germany; her nul = Ukraine (I think). But overall – and this will amuse you gentle reader if you know how this year’s results fell – the Errolvision winner was Moldova (gasp!) and the loser was Portugal (gasp, gasp!)

What of the songs themselves? We started with Israel, who got us off to a great start with a song I really like. Mrs Flag said that IMRI of Israel looks just like me. I will love her forever for that remark. Poland and Belarus followed, to no great interest, then Austria, with Nathan sitting on the moon (not the only incident of mooning that night). Armenia – still don’t get it; Netherlands – still too many harmonies; then Moldova and finally we all had something uptempo and flashy to get our teeth into – I’m sure it inspired many episodes of epic sax later that night. Hungary – still sounds morose, then my favourite Italy, which I willed on to do really well and win but… in the end, it just didn’t somehow. There hasn’t been a more obvious runaway winner than Francesco since Alexander Rybak in 2009; so how come it didn’t win? Great tune, clever lyrics, engaging performer, and the naked ape isn’t an out-and-out gimmick, he features in the song. Although making him wear a rainbow bow-tie was silly. That means he wasn’t naked anymore – and that’s just the point.

Denmark came and went and then it was Portugal, that slow burner that would either do incredibly well or fade away into obscurity. Salvador’s eccentric delivery made a few people laugh in the Errol, and once they realised it wasn’t going to go uptempo, most people just talked through it. Not what the typical Brit thinks is a typical Eurovision song, therefore they weren’t going to show any interest in it. Did they learn nothing from Jamala? Apparently not. Azerbaijan created some scornful cackling at the horse’s head. As for Jacques from Croatia, the Errol audience burst into hysterical laughter at the pompous and ludicrous delivery of the Z-lister from Zagreb, the homophobe from Hrvatska. Many of them voted for it, thinking it was a comedy number.

Australia, Greece, Spain and Norway all came, all went and there wasn’t a lot of interest – apart from the one Australian member of the audience who of course HAD to come down to the front whilst Isaiah was on and wave his wallaby at us. Then it was the UK – and we are of course pre-programmed to hope and expect the best and demand that the rest of Europe will respectfully acknowledge our national superiority and festoon us with high scores. Lucie, as we knew she would, performed brilliantly; I think she heightened expectation by having perfected a superb delivery of that song which made us all forget that the song itself is, basically, quite forgettable; and clearly that’s what the majority of the televoters thought too. Not so bad from the juries though, and it’s always a shame to see your country slowly and inexorably drift back to the right hand side of the screen.

Cyprus: yes okay; then Romania; and the Errol was soon filled with voices reflecting the lilting sound of rapping yodel. We all enjoyed that one. Germany did really well (IMHO), Ukraine had a shocker of a song, Belgium stood like a Brussels sprout left out in the rain, Sweden went on despite saying he couldn’t, Kristian from Bulgaria gave us an absolute belter, and everyone ignored France because by that stage you’re just adding up and working out your votes.

A bright spark in an Australian flag decided to brighten up proceedings whilst Jamala was performing yet another dirge by jumping up on to her podium and revealing his arse to 200 million people. Jamala was a trooper, she didn’t flinch one moment. I expect she’s seen better before. Still at least she got a visual souvenir of the arseholes she sings about in her song 1944. Turns out he wasn’t a drunken Aussie, but a regular Ukrainian prankster by the name of Vitalii Sediuk, and he might be facing a fine or up to five years behind bars, according to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, who goes by the name of Arsen Avakov (you couldn’t make it up).

Portugal won, massively; with Bulgaria in second place and Moldova in third. Portugal’s first win since they started competing in 1964 has been met with pretty much universal approval, even though there are still plenty of people who Just Don’t Get The Song. Not only Portugal’s first win but the best ever placing for the top three countries; and the winning song is the first to be written exclusively by a woman/women – so maybe they did end up celebrating diversity after all. Salvador peed a number of people off by using his winner’s speech to denigrate throw-away pop, and on reflection I think he spoke out of turn. Maybe if he’d spent longer in the ESC bubble he might have realised how some people would have taken it the wrong way. Still, there’s no disguising his success – and his big reception on return to Lisbon airport proves his current popularity.

Mrs Chrisparkle and I had made a secret pact that if either Italy or Portugal won we would almost certainly go to see the show there next year. It will have been three years since the sea of fans in the auditorium in Vienna parted to make way for Mans Zelmerlow to walk through and we were almost trampled to death by big blokes being forced on top of us; just about enough time to forget the pain and fear and endure it all again. Till then, hope you had a great Eurovision season, and don’t get too upset with the Post Eurovision Depression – plans for next year are already afoot!

P. S. I had Portugal at 11/1 win and Moldova at 100/1 each way, and combined with a few little bets about which countries would qualify, that meant I scored a £200 win from those nice people at Skybet!

Review – Screaming Blue Murder, Underground at the Derngate, Northampton, 12th May 2017

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‘Twas the night before Eurovision, and all through the house not a creature was stirring, because we’d all gone out to the Screaming Blue Murder comedy club. Our genial host Dan Evans was on cracking form as usual, sparring ever-so-gently with the people from TCL Landscaping, a 40-year-old birthday boy, a Jumbo-sized guy who dwarfed everyone around him – and Kate. Dan tried to rope Kate into a bit of banter but she wasn’t having any of it. But she didn’t just go coy and sheepish, she went on the offensive and all it went a bit Pete Tong. Sit anywhere near the front in a comedy club and you might end up part of the action. Dem’s de rules. Never mind, better luck next fortnight.

Our first act was Debra-Jane Appleby, quite a posh name for someone who isn’t really that posh. We’d seen her here six years ago (gasp!) where she was our commère for the evening. This time we got to see her act and there’s no doubt about it, she’s really funny. She had some brilliant bits of business – like the visual image of your entitlement to a pension getting further and further away, and her material about trying to be gay because you don’t know until you’ve tried it. She’s also great with addressing her weight issues, in which capacity I can definitely feel her pain. A fab start to the evening.

Next up was Bobby Mair, new to us, and once seen never forgotten. A wonderfully warped sense of humour, he delivers his material as though he was your local friendly psychopath. He’s the kind of guy you can trust to say the wrong thing at a funeral. Indeed – he picked one guy at random from the audience and empathised that if his wife were to die, the benefit of it would be that he could at least f*ck a stranger. I loved his material about music festivals and their similarity to refugee camps; but he’s the kind of comic who keeps the material coming at irregular intervals which in itself unsettles you and pulls you up short with a devastating punchline out of the blue. I can say no more. Utterly brilliant.

Our headline act was Christian Reilly, whom we’ve seen many times before and always puts on a tremendous show of musical comedy, parodying styles and performers, changing their lyrics and always for the better! His Bryan Ferry material was absolutely hilarious and as for his Donald Trump sequence… well yes indeed. He has just the right level of attack and he went down an absolute storm.

Three fantastic acts this week! One more Screaming Blue on 26th May before it hibernates for the summer. You should come!

Eurovision Semi Final Two 2017

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So we reconvened at the appointed hour to witness the solemn ceremony of selecting the final ten to go through to Saturday’s Eurovision Grand Finale. Mrs Chrisparkle and I were accompanied in this challenging but ultimately rewarding task by the likes of Lord and Lady Prosecco (true to their name), Mr and Mrs Jolly-Japester (same applies) and HRH the Crown Prince of Bedford (one doesn’t comment on the behaviour of royalty). Again we each chose the ten songs/performances that we most enjoyed, rather than the ones we thought would get through.

Serbia – Just as it was about to start I popped a bottle of prosecco and it went all over my trousers and socks. By the time I’d mopped it off the table, the carpet and my leg, the song had all but finished. I know I don’t like it much though – it’s too much of a steal from other songs. HRH noted there were two topless male dancers. Given Tijana’s see-through dress, I’ll just leave that with you. Four of us (Mrs C, HRH and the Prosecco pair) decided to put it through to the final.

Austria – We remember Nathan as a happy chappy from the London party. Interesting staging, giving a whole new meaning to mooning. He delivered it superbly as we expected. But is there something lacking from this whole thing? Apparently not, as we all sent Nathan through apart from a grumpy Lord Prosecco.

FYR Macedonia – Mr Jolly-Japester thought her name was Jana Bigchester – clearly his Freudian slip was showing. Jana romped around like a sex kitten, all tinsel and Madonna-like, wearing the epitome of f*ck me boots that Mrs C would die for. Unfortunately, with all this, a rather beautiful and charming song got totally lost. Nevertheless, six of us appreciated her splendid effort, with only Lord Prosecco being grumpy again.

Malta – Breastlessly? enquired Mr Jolly-Japester, clearly on a roll. Well, not entirely, came the group response. Hurrah for Claudia finally making it to Eurovision, and most of us agreed that it’s a strong song, if a trifle old-fashioned. Five of us gave her the thumbs up, only HRH wasn’t impressed with her cleavage and Mr J-J just got too bored with the song.

Romania – It wouldn’t be Eurovision without something totally ridiculous that just might set the world alight. Time then to meet Ilinca and Alex, two lovely people whom you both want to cuddle. Highly impressed with her performance, Mr J-J noted there was no end to what she was capable of with her throat. The song is total rubbish but they give the audience three minutes of sheer delight. One of only four songs that all seven of us put through to the final.

The Netherlands – I explained to the gathered crowds the story of how this song was written and succeeded in puncturing the mood completely (Google it if you don’t know). The girls are lovely and it’s beautifully staged but for me it’s as dull as ditchwater. Do you remember how they criticised Mozart for having too many notes? For me this has too many harmonies. Nevertheless, four brave souls – HRH, Lord P and the J-Js all gave it the nod of approval.

Hungary – Lord Prosecco drew this in the office sweepstake so we were all very excited for him to hear it. Oh dear. Nice dancer. Nice violinist. Shame about the song. Mr J-J thought it sounded like an ode to constipation. We know a Hungarian who is genuinely embarrassed by this song. As the late Terry Wogan once said (of the Austrian entry in 1977) “different, but not sufficiently different to make a difference.” Only Lord Prosecco (with an eye on his sweepstake) and Mr J-J sent it through to the final.

Denmark – Eurovision by numbers, and quite dull. Anja went to school in Winmalee, New South Wales, where Mrs C’s best schoolfriend works as a teacher. She probably taught Anja. I’m full of riveting facts, me. Halfway through we stopped listening and started talking about Jeremy Corbyn. Only Lady Prosecco selected her to go through to the final.

Ireland – I think this was the time when the level of our conversation truly descended, unlike Brendan’s testicles. Three minutes asking ourselves searching questions like: What is he dying to try? Does it involve the local priest? What on earth is he doing out this late at night? What the hell are Ireland playing at? To be honest, I rather liked his balloon. Only one of us voted for him to go through: HRH, and I doubt it had anything to do with the song.

San Marino – Lady Prosecco had already condemned this to oblivion before Valentina and Jimmie had opened their mouths. Valentina was so hyper, Mrs J-J assumed she’d been taking speed. Did I hear the line: “I can see the future is bright, I’ll take your booze away”? Harsh. Very cruise ship; but some cruise ship entertainment is really good. Some. One of two songs that none of us voted for at all.

Croatia – I just can’t take this seriously in any way. I giggled my way all through it, and not in a good way. The ultimate “Look at me, I’m a star” song. I know I’m in no position to comment, but really, a man of his proportions should not wear a leather jacket. Skin tight. Fully done up. Once you’d finished laughing at his duet with himself, there was the blissful hilarity of the duelling strings, the violinist and cellist battling out to the death to see who could leave the stage with any vestige of dignity left. This was the other song that was a nul points from all of us.

Norway – After the overweening, overblown musical flatulence that preceeded it, JOWST’s little song whispered in on a light breeze with just a slight whiff of Jarlsberg. Mrs J-J said she got Ed Sheeran vibes; I’ll have to take her word for that. Maybe it was just because it followed two totally dreadful entries, but all of us sent it through to the final.

Switzerland – Miruna was wearing what I can only describe as an oversized mango smoothie, perched atop an enormous desk caddy, also in fetching mango – thoughtfully they’d removed the pencils. Later on, they wheeled up a pink piano with a pink pianist to provide colour contrast. It was like watching a block of Neapolitan ice-cream. She’s got a great voice – but we hardly noticed the song. The Proseccos and Mrs C put it through.

Belarus – Not Michael Holliday’s version of The Story of my Life, much to Lord Prosecco’s disappointment. Arciom and Ksienija looked like little rays of sunshine. So happy. So lacey (at least, I think that’s what that material is). It took me ages to realise they were on a boat and not merely accompanied by two giant hamster wheels. Their song, in pure Belarussian, was also very happy. And felt much longer than three minutes. Only Mr J-J voted it through.

Bulgaria – Kristian Kostov (not, as Mr J-J had it, “Tossed-off”) impressed us all with his superb voice and beautiful song. Well, nearly all. “Am I the only one who thinks this is boring?” asked Lady Prosecco. “Yes,” we confirmed. I thought it was sheer class from start to finish. Will it carry off the Grand Prix on Saturday night? Not sure. Could be a chance of so near and yet Sofia. Only the low boredom threshold of Lady Prosecco prevented it from being a clean sweep of yays.

Lithuania – From the sublime to the ridiculous, featuring the winner of Lithuania’s Got Talons. When one of our party (who shall be nameless) described Viktorija’s coiffure as a “prickly bush”, we had to halt the recording for some time in order to recover. It was also noted that if Viktorija shoved her finger nail into his underpants, it would have been the longest thing down there. Rubbish song, so who cares? Bizarrely Mrs J-J, in a fit of kindness, voted it through.

Estonia – Two to go, and my second favourite of 2017. Another example of jacket jealousy for me as Koit marched across the stage with enormous authority which crumbled when he gave the camera his “Ed Milliband” look. They were singing about how they’d lost their Verona but they were in each other’s arms and looking happy – had they sneakily found it again but told no one? Loved the harmonies though, and this was another song that we all voted through to the final.

Israel – I’d always thought this was a very good underdog this year and IMRI absolutely nailed the performance. Terrific vocals, smart looking guy, and an enjoyable song. I’d be happy to see the contest in Tel Aviv next year. Universal approbation throughout as this was the fourth song that we all voted for.

So how did we all do? We all got a mixture of 5 or 6 right (I scored 6) except Mr Jolly-Japester who scored 8 and thereby wins a cutting of Viktorija’s prickly bush for bedding purposes. By contrast, if I’d stuck with the eight songs that I predicted would stumble at this hurdle in my earlier preview blog, I’d have scored 7/10. Belarus, Netherlands and most particularly (guffaw) Croatia were my stumbling blocks. Ah well. We’ll all be watching the big show from the luxury of the Errol Flynn Filmhouse on Saturday night – and wherever you are, I hope you have a great Eurovision night and may the best song about a dancing naked ape win!

Review – The Addams Family, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 10th May 2017

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When you think back to The Addams Family, in what year, would you say, did they first appear? No Googling now. No, you’re wrong. They actually first appeared in print cartoon form way back in 1938. The TV series started in 1964 – the very same week that “rivals” The Munsters started; The Addams Family beat them by six days. Since then, we’ve all more or less forgotten about the Munsters. But The Addams Family has been kept alive by a series of films, and in 2010 this stage musical appeared on Broadway, where it did pretty well, running for twenty months. Since then it’s toured all over the world, but this production, by those nice people at Music and Lyrics, is the first time it’s hit the UK.

It’s a fairly simple, and maybe surprisingly moral, story. The Addams Family, who delight in the ghoulish, and wear the macabre on their sleeve as though it were from Tiffany’s, are having their annual meeting of their ghostly ancestors because that’s what happens when you’re an Addams. Young Wednesday Addams has been seeing a “normal” boy – Lucas – and they want to get married, but Wednesday knows her parents are going to be a problem. Lucas and his parents are coming around for dinner, in the hope that they all get along swimmingly so that Wednesday and Lucas can announce their engagement. Unknown to the rest of the family, Uncle Fester has refused to let the ghostly ancestors (remember them?) depart back into their own world until they help him ensure that Wednesday and Lucas get married. Lucas’ dad is an intolerant Conservative (with a Large C) and his mum is a mousey little thing and they’re both way out of their comfort zone at the Addams Family estate. Gomez really only wants to see Wednesday happy, but will Morticia come to terms with a) her daughter marrying a “normal” boy and b) the family withholding secrets from her?

No question, this is a terrific production. It looks thoroughly gorgeous. The costumes, the lighting, the set are all totally spot on. The way the cast have been dressed and made up to look like the original characters is absolutely extraordinary. It’s like the 60s never went away. Alistair David’s choreography is slick and evocative; Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice’s book (they also wrote Jersey Boys) is funny and smart – although I thought our audience on Wednesday evening responded fairly feebly to it, at times I thought it was only Mrs Chrisparkle and me who were understanding the jokes! Andrew Hilton and his eight-piece orchestra filled the theatre with rich, solid, lively sounds. Andrew Lippa’s score includes a few great show toons – Full Disclosure, Just Around the Corner, Happy Sad, and (my favourite) Crazier Than You.

Above all, every member of the cast absolutely gives it everything they’ve got. Cameron Blakely’s Gomez is riveting throughout. Chucking every Flamenco/Spanish idiosyncrasy at it that he can, his physical comedy is brilliant and his range of vocal expressions are just hilarious. He’s a perfect blend of caring family man and total smartarse. I’ve seen Mr Blakely a couple of times before and he has rather specialised in being the best thing in some iffy productions, so it’s great to see him leading a total success for a change! Samantha Womack is also brilliant as Morticia, absolutely capturing that elegant but mournful look, delivering all the comic material with a knowing charm, and of course she absolutely excels in the musical numbers. I’m still upset that she doesn’t include her Eurovision appearance in her programme bio, though; you really shouldn’t be ashamed of being chosen to represent your country. Carrie Hope Fletcher is superb as the lovelorn Wednesday, coming to terms with becoming a woman yet still wanting to torture your kid brother; and Les Dennis is totally unrecognisable – and extremely convincing – as Uncle Fester, part narrator, part moral guide, part weirdo.

Dale Rapley – the excellent Horace Vandergelder to Janie Dee’s Hello Dolly a few years ago – is delightfully pigheaded as the very Ohio Mal Beineke, and Charlotte Page’s Alice Beineke is a wonderful creation; the talking Hallmark greeting card who regains her mojo in a subplot that owes a lot to Rocky Horror. Dickon Gough cuts an immaculately gloomy figure as the grunting Lurch (one of the best curtain call moments for a long time), Grant McIntyre conveys a splendidly spoilt Pugsley, Valda Aviks a suitably batty Grandma and Oliver Ormson stands out as the one and only uncomplicated character as the somewhat hopeless and hapless Lucas.

Criticisms? If you think about it, the ghostly ancestors play absolutely no dramatic role at all, although they do serve as a background chorus line to pad out the big numbers. And I really didn’t understand Fester’s obsession with the Moon. I sensed that I should have enjoyed his romantic number with this celestial being much more than I did, and that his final departure was probably meant to be hysterical – it passed me by, I’m afraid. Still, none of that gets in the way of a very enjoyable night out. We’re not talking serious messages here; there are no social issues to get your teeth into on the way back home. Just straightforward entertainment, expertly done. The tour visits every part of the UK between now and November, and it’s a fun, family show you’d be hard-pressed not to enjoy.

The Agatha Christie Challenge – Murder on the Orient Express (1934)

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STOP PRESS: The Agatha Christie Challenge is now available as a book in two revised volumes – details at the end of this blog post!

In which Hercule Poirot travels on the Simplon-Orient Express from Istanbul to Paris but the train is caught in a snowdrift near Vincovci, and when Poirot wakes the next morning, he discovers that one of his fellow passengers has been murdered. With the aid of his friend M. Bouc, a director of the Wagon-lits company, and the Greek Dr Constantine, he sets about questioning the surviving passengers whilst waiting for the Yugoslavian police to arrive. And he works out the whos and hows of the crime before they get there! And if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, I promise not to give the game away as to whodunit – although I think the identity of the murderer is very well known in folk mythology!

The book is dedicated to “M.E.L.M, Arpachya, 1933”. Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan, Christie’s second husband, the famous archaeologist worked on the dig at Arpachya, four miles from Nineveh in present day Iraq, and Christie accompanied him there for a few weeks, keeping records, and re-assembling and cleaning pottery fragments. She wrote some of the book there, but also, famously, at the Pera Palace Hotel in Istanbul.

It’s one of Christie’s best known and best loved novels, and for a very good reason – it’s a wonderful read. The intrigue of the Middle East, the curiosity of Eastern Europe, the glamorous environment on board an exclusive train, an extraordinary crime and a cast of many varied memorable characters from all across the globe, this book has it all. And it’s written from experience; Christie travelled by the Orient Express many times, delayed by adverse weather conditions, meeting grand passengers of many nationalities. The book begins, almost in travelogue mode, at Aleppo station, boarding the Taurus Express, bound for Stamboul, via Konya and the Cilician Gates. It’s the stuff that dreams are made on.

The Taurus Express operated from Istanbul to Baghdad and only ceased operation in 2003 due to the war. Even today it runs part of the journey, from Eskişehir to Adana, with expectation to extend back to Istanbul once track work is complete, and, who knows, to Baghdad again if there is no war. Christie’s autobiography contains passages of her taking in the view of the Cilician Gates, a pass through the Taurus Mountains connecting the low plains of Cilicia to the Anatolian Plateau in southern Turkey. Poirot stays at the Tokatlian Hotel, as did Christie herself, a hotel that even today is still partly in use.

The Orient Express, of course, that fine old name in grand railway travel, was very well known, covering a few routes through Europe; the Simplon-Orient Express that features in this book started (or ended, depending on your direction) in Istanbul and journeyed via Sofia, Belgrade, Venice, Milan, Lausanne, and ended up in Paris. Alas this itinerary ceased in 1977, with the journey shortening to Bucharest, and then Vienna, until it finally ceased operating in 2009. Today, other passenger trains may adopt the Orient Express name, but they are not associated with the original company. Seems a pity.

The book is nevertheless scattered with exciting-sounding places that conjure up a forbidden time and place. The last stop before the train crawls to a halt because of snow is at Vincovci, (Vinkovci) now in the easternmost part of modern day Croatia. Colonel Arbuthnot and Miss Debenham first meet during the journey from Kirkuk in northern Iraq to Nissibin in Turkey. Mr Ratchett might have turned his clock back an hour at Tzaribrod (modern day Dimitrovgrad) as it’s on the extreme edge of modern day Serbia near its border with Bulgaria (and would indeed be taken over by Bulgaria for three years during the second world war). All names of excitement, or romance, or danger, that really imbue this book with atmosphere.

I won’t be giving anything away by stating that at the heart of the book is the Armstrong Kidnapping Case, where three-year-old heiress Daisy Armstrong was kidnapped for a fabulous ransom sum – but nevertheless, once the sum was paid, the child was still murdered. This was based on the true life, 1932, Lindbergh kidnapping case, where the twenty-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was abducted and later found dead.

What makes this book stand out from all the other Poirots that had gone before is the emphasis on the process of detection. Those little grey cells had never been so exercised. The very factual, totally chronological third-party narration of the story (not by Hastings, who presumably was not around at the time) is designed to present the evidence to the reader at exactly the same time as Poirot receives it, and encourages the reader to work hard to solve the case before the detective does. Christie gives us all the information we require, with the floor plan of the Pullman coach, the sequential conversations in full with all the suspects, and above all, full access to Poirot’s thought processes, with his reactions to M Bouc’s and Dr Constantine’s suggestions and observations. Possibly because of that, you couldn’t call this an action-packed book, like The Secret of Chimneys, for example, where so much activity is poured into the pages that you barely have a chance to think. This is the opposite; there is no activity, everyone is just waiting around for something to happen. It also means that his cast of exciting and glamorous characters each have an opportunity to shine, as each has their own chapter where they give their evidence. It also suggests that an equal weight is given to each response they make, which, at the end of the day, is a good call.

As a result, Poirot’s own characteristics and personality take something of a backseat with this book, as it is the suspects who are primarily under the glare. Of course there are, as always, a few interesting comments concerning Poirot. It’s Miss Debenham who first notices him, at Aleppo: “what an egg-shaped head he had […] A ridiculous-looking little man. The sort of little man one could never take seriously.” Not a great judge of character, then, Miss Debenham. Mr MacQueen is also wrong-footed by his initial appraisal of Poirot: ““I am a detective. My name is Hercule Poirot […] You know the name, perhaps?” “Why, it does seem kind of familiar – only I always thought it was a woman’s dressmaker.” Hercule Poirot looked at him with distaste. “It is incredible!” he said.”

However, in this book I rather like the character of M. Bouc, who to an extent plays the role that Hastings sometimes plays – that of coming up with bright but totally inaccurate ideas off which Poirot can bounce – except that sometimes Hastings just says the right thing. And Bouc says the right thing in this book too, very early on: “It was not till they were eating a delicate cream cheese that M. Bouc allowed his attention to wander to matters other than nourishment. He was at the stage of a meal when one becomes philosophic. “Ah!” he sighed. “If I had but the pen of a Balzac! I would depict this scene. […] All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.” “And yet,” said Poirot, “suppose an accident – […] nevertheless let us just for one moment suppose it. Then, perhaps, all these here are linked together – by death.” “Some more wine,” said M. Bouc, hastily pouring it out. “You are morbid, mon cher. It is, perhaps, the digestion.”

I also like how M. Bouc has, what can only be described as, a Lady Macbeth moment; when Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth hears the news that Duncan has been murdered, she exclaims, “what, in our house?” which many commentators have considered to be a psychological slip on her part, accidentally giving away her own guilt. When M. Bouc realises that a murder has been committed on the Orient Express, and that the victim is an evil criminal himself, he exclaims: ““I cannot regret that he is dead – not at all! […] Tout de même, it is not necessary that he should be killed on the Orient Express. There are other places.” Poirot smiled a little. He realised that M. Bouc was biased in the matter.” Does this give away some Bouc guilty secret? You’ll have to read it to find out.

Unlike nearly all the other Christie books, we don’t get to see many of Christie’s usual themes or recurrent issues. This book is so totally plot and evidence driven, there is little time for social commentary. There are however a number of references and moments of “is this true or is Christie making it up” that I’ve been doing some research. Poirot’s luck is in when the gentleman who has reserved the final second-class compartment on the Orient Express appears to be too late to check in: “”An Englishman,” the conductor consulted his list. “A M. Harris.” “A name of good omen,” said Poirot, “I read my Dickens. M. Harris, he will not arrive.” Mrs Harris was a figment of Sarah Gamp’s imagination in Martin Chuzzlewit. Masterman gives his home address as 21, Friar Street, Clerkenwell. Does this address exist? Well, there is a Friar Street near Ludgate Hill, which I suppose at a pinch you could describe as Clerkenwell but it’s a little bit south. Let’s give Christie the benefit of the doubt – she probably wasn’t that au fait with seedier addresses in London. At the other end of the scale, the Princess Dragomiroff says she lives in the avenue Kleber, in Paris. I bet she does.

Masterman says he spent the evening of the murder reading his current favourite book, Love’s Captive by Mrs Arabella Richardson. Ring any bells with anyone? No, why would it, it’s a Christie invention. It really doesn’t sound like the kind of thing Masterman would enjoy though, does it? In the same conversation: “By the way, are you a pipe smoker?” “No sir, I only smoke cigarettes – gaspers.” We don’t use that word “gaspers” any more. It was a slang term for a high tar cigarette – so given because, when you smoked them, you inevitably had to gasp for breath. You might have guessed that, but what are Glauber’s Salts, such as were found in Mrs Hubbard’s handbag? Here’s a definition straight off the Internet: “A crystalline hydrated form of sodium sulfate, used chiefly as a laxative.” So now you know. And what on earth is a Fallal handkerchief, which is how Mrs Hubbard describes the hanky with the letter H that Poirot is desperate to find an owner for? If you didn’t know – and I certainly didn’t – fallal is a very old-fashioned word (early 18th century) best translated today as bling.

And finally, whilst M. Bouc is trying to rationalise and imagine which of the train guests might have worn the Wagon Lit uniform – and coming up with no real options – Poirot references “our old friend Euclid”. As you may well know, Euclid was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the “father of geometry”. Now it may well be that Euclid had a theory that Poirot recollected, but I’m far too much of a maths moron to even try to work out what that might be. I’ll leave it up to your imaginations.

Regular readers will know I like to convert any significant financial sums into what their equivalent would be today – just to get a better feel for the amounts involved. There are only two important sums mentioned in this book – the $20,000 offered by Ratchett to Poirot if he would work for him, and the (gasp) $200,000, which was the ransom demanded for the return of Daisy Armstrong. In today’s figures these would be approximately £18.3m and £183m. I’m more astonished at the former than the latter – if Poirot passed up the opportunity to earn that kind of money merely on principle, then he’s one helluva principled guy.

Now it’s time for my usual at-a-glance summary, for Murder on the Orient Express:

Publication Details: 1934. Fontana paperback, 8th impression, published in May 1972, priced 25p. The thrillingly evocative cover illustration by Tom Adams of an Eastern European map covered with the multitude of clues that Poirot has to sift through, always made me feel strangely excited as a child.

How many pages until the first death: 29. That’s when the death is reported although it probably happens six pages earlier. Enough time to lay the groundwork, and plenty of time to exercise the little grey cells.

Funny lines out of context: Most unusually, I’ve scoured the book and actually found very little, whereas usually there are plenty of these to enjoy. Sorry to disappoint you this time round.

Memorable characters:
Here’s where it excels. It positively drips with them. You have the grand, slightly scary Princess Dragomiroff; the aggressive-assertive Colonel Arbuthnot; the verbose Mrs Hubbard; the stereotypically loud Italian Foscarelli. I also enjoyed the blundering but well-meaning M. Bouc, and I think it’s a shame that he doesn’t reappear anywhere else in Christie’s works. And of course you have Ratchett, one of the most deserving victims in literature.

Christie the Poison expert:
Not in this book. Death is administered by fatal stabbing.

Class/social issues of the time:

As I suggested earlier, there isn’t much in the way of social issue debate in this book because it would get in the way of the pure facts on which Poirot and his team are purely concentrating. There are some good examples of xenophobia though, many of which feel very contemporary in today’s world of unfortunate distrust between the United Kingdom, the USA and mainland Europe.

The character of Ratchett is blown up to be a really unappealing character and his American-ness, if I can call it that, is very strongly conveyed. When Masterman is asked if he liked his employer, he hesitates to tell the complete truth: “Shall we put it that I don’t care very much for Americans, sir.” Mrs Hubbard too, with her interminably dramatic and self-indulgent speeches also conveys many of the aspects of an American which, dare I suggest, a European might find discourteous: “there isn’t anybody knows a thing on this train. And nobody’s trying to do anything. Just a pack of useless foreigners.” Mr Hardman, too, when asked about the girl in the Armstrong case who threw herself out of the window, remarks: “she was a foreigner of some kind. Maybe she had some wop relations.” Charming. Colonel Arbuthnot is another perpetrator. When interviewing him, “Poirot proceeded: “It is that you come home from India on what is called the leave – what we call en permission?” Colonel Arbuthnot, uninterested in what a pack of foreigners called anything, replied with true British brevity: “Yes.””

But there are a couple of instances when this xenophobia gets turned on its head, with rather enjoyable effects. When Masterman is caught lying, he suddenly gets very protective of his Italian colleague: “I hope, sir, that you’re not suspecting Tonio in any way. Old Tonio, sir, wouldn’t hurt a fly. And I can swear positively that he never left the carriage all last night. So, you see, sir, he couldn’t have done it. Tonio may be a foreigner, sir but he’s a very gentle creature – not like those nasty murdering Italians one reads about.” And, given that this book was published five years before the start of the Second World War, consider this brief conversation between Poirot and Frau Schmidt: “You have heard, perhaps, of who this man who was killed really was – that he was responsible for the death of a little child.” “Yes, I have heard, Monsieur. It was abominable – wicked. The good God should not allow such things. We are not so wicked as that in Germany.”

Classic denouement: Absolutely. All the suspects are there, all the representatives of the law are there, and Poirot propounds two theories. One – the truth. Another – one that fits exactly with the sequence of events and cannot be disproved. He hands both ideas over to M. Bouc and Dr Constantine for their recommendation.

Happy ending? Extremely. There may well be wedding bells between two of the characters, but that is of lesser importance than the suggestion that justice has been done. It’s the justice that really makes this a happy ending.

Did the story ring true? It’s far-fetched, of course, but actually it rings completely true. I’m surprised that crimes like this don’t happen more frequently – maybe they do!

Overall satisfaction rating: 10/10. An absolute gem of a classic!

Thanks for reading my blog of Murder on the Orient Express and if you’ve read it too, I’d love to know what you think. Please just add a comment in the space below. Next up in the Agatha Christie Challenge, it’s back to the short story format with The Listerdale Mystery; it’s been a long time since I’ve read this and I can’t remember anything about it, so I’m looking forward to getting tucked in to it! As always, I’ll blog my thoughts about it in a few weeks’ time. In the meantime, please read it too then we can compare notes! Happy sleuthing!

If you enjoy my Agatha Christie Challenge, did you know it is now available as a book? In two revised volumes, it contains all my observations about Christie’s books and short stories, and also includes all her plays! The perfect birthday or Christmas gift, you can buy it from Amazon – the links are here and here!