THEATRE
Spider's Web. By Agatha Christie. (Savoy.) Aficionados of the detective story will have difficulty in recognising several of its Most typical ingredients in Agatha Christie's bew play. The body behind the sofa in the comfortable country-house, the international drug ring, the Foreign Secretary on his way to meet a delegate from behind the Iron Curtain, the curious convention by which the only people whose murder can actually be applauded on the stage are drug traffickers and white slavers . , . all these appetising trifles are mixed with Mrs. Christie's usual skill, and, if the sharp tang of novelty is often lacking, this is, after all, Christmas time, when much of the pleasure we get out of entertainment comes from the repetition of well-tried gestures. This is not quite such a good thriller as Mrs. Christie's other two successes in the West End, but it is still very much better than anything else of its kind. Moreover, it has Margaret Lockwood playing the leading part and producing a convincing picture of the female romancer defending her home. Miss Lockwood, ably seconded by Felix Aylmer as the distin- guished old family friend dragged into a murder case, manages to behave as if it were the most normal thing in the world to find bodies in the library and then take evasive action as regards the police. Her tall stories would have any inspector off his head in no time, though Mrs. Christie is conscientious about sprinkling them with genuine clues. Too conscientious perhaps—for once I was able to spot the murderer.
ANTHONY HARTLEY
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