Agatha Christie: A Life in Theatre. Julius Green
own principal concern was with the portrayal of Poirot. Although she ultimately preferred Francis L. Sullivan’s interpretation to Charles Laughton’s, she laments in her autobiography, ‘It always seems strange to me that whoever plays Poirot is always an outsize man. Charles Laughton had plenty of avoirdupois, and Francis Sullivan was broad, thick and about 6’2” tall.’24
Sullivan, like Laughton, saw Poirot as an ideal vehicle for his talents, and had actually first performed the role in the post-West End tour of Alibi. In fact he made something of a career of being the poor man’s Charles Laughton, not only taking over his role in Alibi but also starring in a 1942 revival of A Man With Red Hair. Sullivan would receive his final ‘review’ in 1956 in the form of his Times obituary, which opined, ‘Corpulence, sharp eyes embedded in florid features, and a deep, plummy voice suited him admirably for the part of the suave but foxy lawyer. He was generally too much of a caricature to be unrelievedly sinister, and though he was sometimes cast as a comic, his talents were wasted if there was no streak of evil in the part. His acting had a wider range than his exaggerated physique might suggest. He was an obvious choice for Bottom, and perhaps for Mr Bumble, but not for Hercule Poirot …’25
Although Christie had objected to the amorous antics of a French ‘Beau Poirot’ in Alibi, she was not above introducing an element of romantic frisson when it came to her own portrayal of her Belgian sleuth. Here are the final moments of Alibi, as performed by Charles Laughton:
CARYL (softly) I don’t care what anyone says, you will always be “Beau Poirot” to me! (holds out her hand) Good-night!
POIROT: (Taking both her hands, kisses first one, then the other) Good-bye. (Still holding her hands) Believe me, Mees
Caryl, I do everything possible to be of service to you!
(drops her hands)
(CARYL goes out)
Good-bye!
POIROT stands at the open window looking out after her as the Curtain slowly falls.26
And here are the not dissimilar final moments of Black Coffee, written several years before Alibi, in the original script approved by the Lord Chamberlain and performed by Francis L. Sullivan at the Embassy:
LUCIA: M Poirot – (she holds out both hands to him)
Do not think that I shall ever forget …
(Lucia raises her face. Poirot kisses her.)
(She goes back to Richard [her husband]. Lucia and Richard go out together … Poirot mechanically straightens things on the centre table but with his eyes fixed on the door through which Lucia has passed.)
POIROT: Neither – shall I – forget.27
Reviews from the Embassy, as with Alibi, inevitably focused largely on the interpretation of Poirot. ‘Mr Sullivan is obviously very happy in the part, and his contribution to the evening’s entertainment is a considerable one,’ said The Times.28 Amongst the other characters are Dr Carelli – played at the Embassy by Donald Wolfit – the archetypal Christie ‘unexpected guest’ who has echoes in The Mousetrap’s Mr Paravicini; and, more interestingly, a wittily executed portrayal of a young ‘flapper’ girl, the murder victim’s niece. The flapper phenomenon was at its height in 1922, as a generation of young women threw off the restrictions of the Victorian and Edwardian era and defined their own agenda in terms of fashion, entertainment and social interaction with men. The sexual revolution of the 1920s, in its subversion of what went before it, was arguably far more radical than anything that happened in the 1960s, and although Agatha herself would have been a decade too old to qualify as a flapper or to embrace their style and philosophy, there is a distinct affection in her writing for what they stood for, albeit informed by her trademark observational humour. In Black Coffee, Barbara Amory is described as ‘an extremely modern young woman of twenty-one’. She dances to records on the gramophone and flirts mercilessly with Hastings, describing him as ‘pre-war’ (‘Victorian’ in the original script) and exhorting him to ‘come and be vamped’. When criticised by her aunt for the brightness of her lipstick, she responds, ‘take it from me, a girl simply can’t have too much red on her lips. She never knows how much she is going to lose in the taxi coming home.’
When the play did finally open in the West End, at the St Martin’s Theatre, it was in a much-changed production. Christie had undertaken rewrites, as she had felt that her ‘aged’ play seemed out of date when she saw it at the Embassy. ‘Have been working very hard on Black Coffee. Some scenes were a little old fashioned, I thought,’29 she wrote to Max. Tricks she uses in order to achieve a more ‘contemporary’ feel include a joke about the brand-name vitamins Bemax, which were advertised widely in 1930. The script published by Arthur Ashley in 1934 included these changes, along with the following more straight-laced version of the final scene:
LUCIA: (Down to Poirot, takes his hand, she also has Richard’s hand) M.Poirot, do not think I shall forget – ever.
POIROT: Neither shall I forget (kisses her hand.)
(Lucia and Richard go out together through window. [Poirot] follows them to window, and calls out after them.)
POIROT: Bless you, mes enfants! Ah-h!
(Moves to the fireplace, clicks his tongue and straightens the spill vases.)30
At the Embassy, Black Coffee had been directed by Andre van Gyseghem, a radical young director who, as a RADA-trained actor, had worked for the theatre’s creative head A.R. Whatmore in his previous post at the Hull Repertory Theatre. A leading light of the Workers’ Theatre Movement, van Gyseghem was to become a member of the Communist Party and a frequent visitor to the Soviet Union, and later penned a surprisingly readable book entitled Theatre in Soviet Russia (1943). The West End production of Black Coffee was redirected by Oxford-educated Douglas Clarke-Smith, an actor-director who appears to have had no association with the Embassy, but who had cut his teeth at Birmingham Rep after distinguished service in the First World War, and who went on to direct over twenty productions for pioneering touring group the Lena Ashwell Players, the peacetime incarnation of the company that had provided entertainment for the troops throughout the conflict.
As well as a new director, all but one of the supporting cast to Sullivan’s Poirot were also new to the piece. Joyce Bland was amongst those who were replaced, along with van Gyseghem himself, who had doubled his directing duties with the small but significant role of Edward Raynor. Given that the delay in transferring had allowed for the luxury of a new rehearsal period, the Embassy had clearly decided not to commit too many of their core ensemble to a potentially lengthy West End run. On 9 April 1931, the day Alec Rea presented the West End premiere of Black Coffee, The Times was listing attractions at thirty-one West End theatres, including revivals of Shaw’s Man and Superman at the Court, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the Fortune and Somerset Maugham’s The Circle at the Vaudeville. At the Queen’s Theatre, Rudolf Besier’s The Barretts of Wimpole Street, directed by Barry Jackson, was advertising itself as ‘London’s Longest Run’ (which, of the productions then running in London, it was; it went on to complete 530 performances).
In the end, Black Coffee itself was to enjoy only a very short West End run. Reviews of the new production were not unfavourable, and the Observer’s influential Ivor Brown noted, ‘Mr Francis Sullivan prudently refraining from a Charles Laughton pastiche does not tie the “character” labels all over the part, but plays it quietly and firmly, trusting that the story will do its own work of entertainment.’ But he concluded, ‘Black Coffee is supposed to be a strong stimulant and powerful enemy of sleep. I found the title optimistic.’31
Reandco soon found that they needed the St Martin’s in order to gain a West End foothold for another production; as The Times reported: ‘In order that Messrs. Reandco may present Mr Ronald Jeans’s new play Lean Harvest at the St Martin’s Theatre on Thursday next, Mrs Agatha Christie’s play Black Coffee will be transferred on Monday to the Wimbledon