The award-winning Original Theatre Company have announced Miss Marple’s return to the stage in a brand new production of Rachel Wagstaff’s acclaimed adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d. The production, directed by Philip Franks, will begin its UK Tour at Devonshire Park, Eastbourne on 8 September 2022.
The Mirror Crack’d will star Susie Blake as Miss Marple, with further casting to be announced.
In 1960s England, a wind of change is blowing through the land. It has even reached the sleepy village of St Mary Mead. There’s a new housing estate, which alarms the villagers as much as it intrigues them and, even more unsettling, a rich American film star has bought the manor house. Jane Marple, confined to a chair after an accident, is wondering if life has passed her by. Then there is a shocking murder, and Miss Marple must unravel a web of lies, danger and tragedy. This adaptation of Agatha Christie’s famous novel brings real emotional depth and psychological insight to a thrilling story of secrets, loss and revenge.
The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side was published in the UK in 1962 and adapted as a feature film, The Mirror Crack’d, in 1980, starring Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. On television, adaptations of the novel have starred Joan Hickson as Miss Marple in 1992 and Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple in 2011.
Director Philip Franks said of the new stage adaptation, “Rachel Wagstaff’s new version of Agatha Christie’s fascinating mystery has real heart and depth as well as tension. It’s witty, exciting, fresh and surprising.”
Rachel Wagstaff said, “I am so excited to be working with The Original Theatre Company on this new production of The Mirror Crack’d, a fascinating mystery, packed with a rich constellation of characters, all struggling with loneliness and the long shadows cast by grief. I have always loved Miss Marple’s wry observations about human nature and her desire to put the world quietly to rights, so it’s a pleasure to welcome back the acclaimed and wonderful Susie Blake to play the role of Jane Marple.”
The Mirror Crack’d will be directed by Philip Franks (Barnes’ People, The Haunting of Alice Bowles, The Habit of Art, The Croft and A Cold Supper Behind Harrods) and designed by Adrian Linford, with lighting design by Emma Chapman, sound design by Max Pappenheim and casting by Ellie Collyer-Bristow CDG.
The UK Tour will be produced by Alastair Whatley and Tom Hackney for The Original Theatre Company, the production company behind the critically acclaimed lockdown online productions of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong Online, Louise Coulthard’s Watching Rosie, Torben Betts’s Apollo 13: The Dark Side of The Moon, Philip Franks’s The Haunting of Alice Bowles and Peter Barnes’s Barnes’ People, as well as the stage productions A Splinter of Ice, The Habit of Art, Invincible and Birdsong.
Full listings and ticket information can be found here
