Agatha Christie: A Life in Theatre. Julius Green
used by the stage manager to record technical cues and stage directions in rehearsal. Few of these still exist, although The Mousetrap’s is housed in the V&A Theatre Archive. The ‘acting edition’ of Christie’s plays, which was usually published by Samuel French within a year of the first performance, would often incorporate stage directions from the prompt copy which Christie herself had not actually written.
Christie researchers and biographers are also fortunate to have access to the archives of Hughes Massie Ltd, her agent, relating to her work. Edmund Cork, who took over the company from the eponymous Massie, started representing Christie in 1923 and masterminded her business affairs until his death in 1988. Central to this extensive collection are the file copies of his regular updates to Christie on the progress of her work with publishers and theatre producers. What is immediately apparent from this correspondence is that under Cork’s guidance ‘Agatha Christie’ rapidly became the first truly global, multi-media business empire based on the intellectual property of one individual. One woman with a typewriter was creating the work and one man with a typewriter (assisted by a small staff that latterly included his daughter, Pat) was responsible for selling it throughout the world; in print and on stage, as well as on film, sound recording, radio and television. Cork not only had to grapple with prototype contracts in many of the media concerned, but also with the complex and burdensome UK and international tax implications of individual worldwide royalty income on such an unprecedented scale. His unceasing labours on Christie’s behalf, and his unfaltering loyalty, charm, tact, discretion and good humour, led Christie to place a complete and deserved trust in her agent, who was four years her junior. Taking on a role which these days would be described as ‘personal manager’, he dealt with everything from organising tickets for her regular theatre visits to dealing with troublesome tenants and the purchase of a new car. So complete was the trust between them that she would give him power of attorney when she and Max were away together on archaeological digs, to avoid their work being interrupted by business matters.
Cork had an eloquent and witty turn of phrase and his correspondence, both with Christie herself and with his New York counterpart, her American agent Harold Ober, make both for an entertaining read and a comprehensive narrative of Christie’s business affairs. He may have made some mistakes, particularly when grappling with the unprecedented complexities of the network of companies and family trusts that latterly masterminded the collection and disbursement of Christie’s royalty income, but on the front line of dealing with the sale and licensing of her work he was a canny businessman and a shrewd judge of character.
The Hughes Massie archive is housed at Exeter University and contains extensive correspondence between Cork and Christie, but sadly it only commences in 1938, and is sparse before 1940, so we have to look elsewhere for information regarding the business side of Christie’s theatrical work prior to this date. Here her own correspondence with her husband can be used to fill in some of the gaps, as too can the archives of theatrical producer Basil Dean, with whom she discussed some of her work, although he never produced any of it.
Despite the huge success of adaptations of Christie’s work on both large and small screens, she herself had absolutely no interest in film or television. She disliked the majority of the film adaptations of her work that she saw and, apart from a lengthy and diligent, but unused, film adaptation of Dickens’ Bleak House, and a speculative, and equally unused, two-page film treatment for her play Spider’s Web, she never wrote for the medium. She took part in a couple of radio ‘serial’ stories on behalf of the Detection Club (of which she was appointed president in 1957) and wrote four original radio plays which were broadcast live on the BBC but, despite misinformation to the contrary, she never wrote for television. Theatre, on the other hand, was her lifelong passion, both as a creator and a consumer.
Although Cork was initially sceptical about the commercial value of Christie’s theatre projects, and was delightfully and wittily cynical about what he referred to as the ‘vicissitudes of theatre’ and the colourful personalities who populate its world, it is apparent that he quickly came to understand that the way to engage her attention was to prioritise her theatre work in his correspondence. And the result is that, doubtless against his own inclinations, a remarkably large amount of it relates to matters theatrical. As Christie herself commented in a 1951 press interview, ‘with a book you have fewer anxieties. You write it, send it to your publisher, and, after a time, it appears. In the case of a play such things as the right cast, the most suitable sort of theatre, the best time for its production, the success or not of the first night, and a dozen other things have to be taken into consideration.’21 It is evident from both her personal and her business correspondence that Christie greatly enjoyed engaging in these theatrical debates.
Eventually, though, even Cork had to admit that Christie’s work for the stage was not simply an intellectual diversion on her part but a valuable source of core income to the business empire that he masterminded. At the time when Christie’s plays were first being produced, London’s West End ‘theatreland’ as we now know it, comprising around forty high-profile commercially operated theatres, was a relatively recent phenomenon.22 A theatre building boom, facilitated by the 1843 Theatres Act’s removal of draconian licensing restrictions, had taken place between the last decades of the nineteenth century and the eve of the First World War, and playwrights now aspired to have their work presented in one of these prestigious London venues. A West End production, which would be reviewed by the national newspapers’ theatre critics and would gain considerable publicity, could greatly enhance a play’s value, making it attractive to repertory theatres, amateur groups, touring and international producers and even film companies. The key, therefore, did not necessarily lie in the success or otherwise of the first West End run but in the ability subsequently to exploit a title in these other markets. The licences issued to theatre producers by literary agents such as Hughes Massie consequently put a huge premium on achieving a West End production, rewarding producers who did so with participation in the subsidiary income thus derived and thereby ensuring that they shared an interest with the agent in achieving the maximum exploitation of a title. New York’s Broadway theatre district, which owes its current configuration to a theatrical building boom in the first three decades of the twentieth century, fulfilled a similar role to the West End in providing a valuable showcase for a playwright’s work. The licences issued to theatre producers today still reflect the importance of both West End and Broadway productions for this reason.
This book focuses on the journey that each of Agatha Christie’s plays took from page to stage in their original productions; there is simply not space to enumerate or evaluate the countless subsequent presentations of each title. Peter Haining sums it up well: ‘the number of productions of her work plus the adaptations in this country, let alone the rest of the world, has passed into the realms of the uncountable. The performances of touring companies, repertory theatres and amateur dramatic societies are simply legion … Though, like all playwrights, Agatha Christie had her flops and short runs, her name outside a theatre has long exercised a tremendous attraction for the public, and spelt gold for the management.’23
The volume and complexity of the licensing of Christie’s stage work is apparent from the enormous typewritten card index which constitutes Hughes Massie’s Agatha Christie licensing records from the 1920s to the 1990s, housed in twenty-one leather-bound volumes at Agatha Christie Limited, the company which is now responsible for the global exploitation of her work. The two files labelled ‘DD – apart from radio’ are those of the Hughes Massie Drama Department, and detail the numerous global licensing and sub-licensing transactions relating to her dramatic work (apart from radio!). In most cases amateur rights for the English speaking world were licensed to Samuel French Ltd (who also publish the ‘acting editions’ of the playscripts), and in many other overseas territories deals were done with licensing sub-agents for both professional and amateur rights. These unique records confirm once again that the plays of Agatha Christie were, and remain, a vast international industry. As soon as each West End production opened, licences were being issued from Iceland to Kenya.
Of course, commercial success is a double-edged sword when it comes to critical reputation. Christie believed that critics resented the success of The Mousetrap, the longevity of which has become something of a theatrical running joke and which is by no means her best work as a playwright;