 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(December 2009) |
| Chimneys | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Agatha Christie |
| Based on | The Secret of Chimneys |
| Date premiered | 16 October 2003 |
| Place premiered | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
Chimneys is a play by crime writer Agatha Christie and is based upon her own 1925 novel The Secret of Chimneys .
The play was written in 1931 and was due to open at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage in December of that year. One year previously, Black Coffee , Christie's first performed stage play, had opened at the same theatre.
As was the law at the time, the play was vetted by the Lord Chamberlain's Office and passed for performance. Several press articles [ who? ] referred to the new play but suddenly, and without explanation, the theatre substituted Mary Broome, a four-act comedy from 1912 by Allan Monkhouse, in its place.
While not forgotten, it remained unknown other than to a small group of aficionados until December 2001 when John Paul Fischbach, the Artistic Director of Vertigo Theatre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, was looking to re-launch the company after it had been forced to vacate its home in the Calgary Science Centre and was opening in its new home of the Vertigo Theatre Centre. In looking for something special and relatively unknown to celebrate the opening, Fischbach contacted Agatha Christie Limited, who handle the author's rights, and was told by its chairman (and Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard) that the only relatively unknown stage work that could be performed was the 1930s play A Daughter's a Daughter which was performed once in the 1950s but had previously been revised into a 1952 novel published under the nom-de-plume of Mary Westmacott. Fischbach had a copy of the play available and in looking through it, found another manuscript headed: Chimneys: A play in three acts by Agatha Christie. He again contacted Prichard who said that he had heard of the play but said he had never seen a copy. Prichard contacted the British Library who located the typescript (together with notes suggesting Laurence Olivier for one of the roles) and Vertigo Theatre presented the play's world premiere on 16 October 2003 with Mathew Prichard in the audience.
The UK premiere took place on 1 June 2006 when it was performed by the Pitlochry Festival Theatre Company. The US premiere took place on 12 June 2008 as part of the International Mystery Writers' Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky. The Australian premiere was on 6 March 2021 at the Genesian Theatre. [1] [2]
The play has been published in the collection "Discovering New Mysteries Scripts" by on Stage Press, a division of Samuel French, Inc.
Director: John Durnin
Cast:
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a moniker which is now trademarked by her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
Miss Jane Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories. Miss Marple lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective. Often characterized as an elderly spinster, she is one of Christie's best-known characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in The Royal Magazine in December 1927, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and her last appearance was in Sleeping Murder in 1976.
Agatha Christie's Poirot, or simply Poirot, is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. The ITV show is based on many of Agatha Christie’s famous crime fiction series, which revolves around the fictional private investigator, Hercule Poirot. David Suchet starred as the fictional detective. Initially produced by LWT, the series was later produced by ITV Studios. The series also aired on VisionTV in Canada and on PBS and A&E in the US.
The Murder on the Links is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the US by Dodd, Mead & Co in March 1923, and in the UK by The Bodley Head in May of the same year. It is the second novel featuring Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6), and the US edition at $1.75.
The Secret Adversary is the second published detective fiction novel by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in January 1922 in the United Kingdom by The Bodley Head and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company later in that same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $1.75.
The Seven Dials Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on 24 January 1929 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.
The Secret of Chimneys is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by The Bodley Head in June 1925 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. It introduces the characters of Superintendent Battle and Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie. The Mousetrap opened in London's West End in 1952 and ran continuously until 16 March 2020, when the stage performances had to be temporarily discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic. It then re-opened on 17 May 2021. The longest-running West End show, it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Attendees at St Martin's Theatre often get their photo taken beside the wooden counter in the theatre foyer. As of 2022 the play has been seen by 10 million people in London.
Fiddlers Three is a play written by Agatha Christie in 1972. The play was first written and performed as Fiddlers Five, which toured briefly in 1971 after opening in Bristol. The revised version toured in the provinces for several weeks after its premiere at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford on 1 August 1972, but failed to meet with success.
Nicholas C. Frost, known professionally as Nicholas Farrell, is an English stage, film and television actor.
Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent is a fictional character of two of the Agatha Christie novels, The Secret of Chimneys (1925) and The Seven Dials Mystery (1929), described as a spirited "it girl".
Miss Marple, titled Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the series, is a British television series based on the Miss Marple murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie, starring Joan Hickson in the title role. It aired from 26 December 1984 to 27 December 1992 on BBC1. All twelve original Miss Marple novels by Christie were dramatised.
Black Coffee is a play by the British crime-fiction author Agatha Christie (1890–1976) which was produced initially in 1930. The first piece that Christie wrote for the stage, it launched a successful second career for her as a playwright. In the play, a scientist discovers that someone in his household has stolen the formula for an explosive. The scientist calls Hercule Poirot to investigate, but is murdered just as Poirot arrives with Hastings and Inspector Japp.
Spider's Web is a play by crime writer Agatha Christie. Spider's Web, which premiered in London’s West End in 1954, is Agatha Christie's second most successful play, having run longer than Witness for the Prosecution, which premiered in 1953. It is surpassed only by Christie's record-breaking The Mousetrap, which has run continuously since opening in the West End in 1952.
And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by the English writer Agatha Christie, who described it as the most difficult of her books to write. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as Ten Little Niggers, after an 1869 minstrel song that serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released in January 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song. Successive American reprints and adaptations use that title, though American Pocket Books paperbacks used the title Ten Little Indians between 1964 and 1986. UK editions continued to use the original title until 1985.
The Embassy Theatre is a theatre at 64 Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, in the London Borough of Camden, England.
Colonel Hubert Cecil Prichard was an English cricketer. He was born in Stapleton, Gloucestershire, and played two matches for Gloucestershire in 1896. He later played for Glamorgan. He left the army in 1897 and relocated to Colwinston in Wales, where he resided at Pwllywrach. During the Second World War, he was a major in the Glamorgan Yeomanry and commandant of a prisoner-of-war camp.
Lists of adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie:
The Agatha Christie Memorial is a memorial to author and playwright Agatha Christie, located at the intersection of Cranbourn Street and Great Newport Street by St Martin's Cross near Covent Garden, in London, United Kingdom.
Rosalind Margaret Clarissa Hicks was the only child of author Agatha Christie.
