| The Unexpected Guest | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Agatha Christie |
| Date premiered | 12 August 1958 |
| Place premiered | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
The Unexpected Guest is a 1958 play by crime writer Agatha Christie.
The play opened in the West End at the Duchess Theatre on 12 August 1958 [1] after a previous try-out at the Bristol Hippodrome. It was directed by Hubert Gregg.
On a foggy night, Michael Starkwedder enters the home of the Warwicks through a window in the study. He finds the dead body of Richard Warwick, and finds Richard's wife, Laura, holding a gun that supposedly killed him. Michael does not believe she killed him, and she soon tells him she is innocent.
The two decide to place the blame on an enemy from the past, MacGregor, a man whose son was killed when he was run over by Richard's car while Richard was driving drunk. As the story progresses, it is revealed that Laura was having an affair due to Richard's cruel nature, and was vouching for the man she was cheating with when she claimed to have killed Richard.
The action of the play takes place in Richard Warwick's study in South Wales near the Bristol Channel.
ACT I
ACT II
Philip Hope-Wallace of The Guardian reviewed the opening night in the issue of 13 August 1958 when he said, "The Unexpected Guest is standard Agatha Christie. It has nothing as ingenious or exciting as the court scene and double twist of Witness for the Prosecution but it kept last night's audience at the Duchess Theatre in a state of stunned uncertainty; guessing wrongly to the last. There are one or two irritating factors: an outsize red herring in the shape of what, naturally, one may not disclose; also one of those corpse's mothers who say, in so many words, "Inspector, I have not many years to live…" and embark on enormities of tedious repetition."
Mr Hope-Wallace said that the corpse was, "impeccably played with, no doubt, full assistance of the Method, by Philip Newman" and concluded, "I have known more tension and greater surprise from other of Mrs. Christie's classics but this is quite a decent specimen of her craft." [2]
Laurence Kitchin of The Observer reviewed the play in the issue of 17 August 1958 when he said. "The corpse cools unregarded in a wheel-chair while the widow and an intruder embark on a complicated exposition. Provided you can accept such unreality and the abysmal humour, there is an ingenious display of suspects, as if lids were being taken off wells of depravity and hastily put back." [3]
The Guardian reported that The Queen attended a performance of the play on the evening of 16 February 1959 with Lord and Lady Mountbatten. The cast were unaware that she was in the audience. It was also the night that Christopher Sandford fell ill part way through the performance and had to be replaced by his understudy after the interval. [4]
Director: Hubert Gregg
Cast:
The play was first published in 1958 by Samuel French Ltd. in a paperback edition priced at six shillings. Like Black Coffee (1998) and Spider's Web (2000), the script of the play was turned into a novel by Charles Osborne. It was published in the UK by HarperCollins in 1999.
A radio dramatisation adapted and directed by Gordon House was broadcast by the BBC on 30 May 1981.
It was adapted into a 1980 Italian television movie, L'ospite inatteso.
Many Indian films have adapted the story into several languages.
Cards on the Table is a detective fiction novel by the English author Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.00.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a detective novel by the British writer Agatha Christie, her third to feature Hercule Poirot as the lead detective. The novel was published in the UK in June 1926 by William Collins, Sons, having previously been serialised as Who Killed Ackroyd? between July and September 1925 in the London Evening News. An American edition by Dodd, Mead and Company followed in 1926.
Lord Edgware Dies is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1933 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of Thirteen at Dinner. Before its book publication, the novel was serialised in six issues of The American Magazine as 13 For Dinner.
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, a novel by Agatha Christie, was published in the UK in 1962 and a year later in the US under the title The Mirror Crack'd. The story features amateur detective Miss Marple solving a mystery in St. Mary Mead.
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.
At Bertram's Hotel is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 15 November 1965 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple staying at an upmarket hotel which is at the centre of a mysterious disappearance.
A Murder Is Announced is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1950 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in the same month. The UK edition sold for eight shillings and sixpence (8/6) and the US edition at $2.50.
Ordeal by Innocence is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 3 November 1958 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6) and the US edition at $2.95.
A Caribbean Mystery is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 16 November 1964 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple.
Nemesis is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie (1890–1976) and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1971 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at £1.50 and the US edition at $6.95. It was the last Miss Marple novel the author wrote, although Sleeping Murder was the last Miss Marple novel to be published.
And Then There Were None is a 1974 mystery film and an adaptation of Agatha Christie's best-selling 1939 mystery novel of the same name. The film was directed by Peter Collinson and produced by Harry Alan Towers. This was the second of three versions of Christie's novel to be adapted to the screen by producer Harry Alan Towers. Two film adaptations were previously released. An American made-for-television version was broadcast in 1959. Towers produced a third version in 1989.
Puriyaadha Puthir is a 1990 Indian Tamil-language mystery thriller film written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar in his directorial debut. It is a remake of the 1989 Kannada film Tarka which was based on Agatha Christie's 1958 play, The Unexpected Guest. The film, produced by R. B. Choudary, was released on 7 September 1990.
Witness for the Prosecution is a play adapted by Agatha Christie from her 1925 short story "Traitor's Hands". The play opened in London on 28 October 1953 at the Winter Garden Theatre. It was produced by Sir Peter Saunders.
Dhund is a 1973 Hindi thriller movie produced and directed by B. R. Chopra. It stars Sanjay Khan, Zeenat Aman, Danny Denzongpa, Deven Verma, Madan Puri, Navin Nischol and Ashok Kumar. The music is by Ravi. The film was successful at the box office.
Tarka is a 1989 Indian Kannada-language mystery-thriller film, produced by Praveen and directed and written by Sunil Kumar Desai based on Agatha Christie's 1958 play The Unexpected Guest. It is the first film noir in Kannada cinema, and the first Kannada film to be made without songs, dance, or stunt sequences. The film stars Shankar Nag, Devaraj and Vanitha Vasu in lead roles along with Avinash, Shivaraj and Praveen Nayak in supporting roles. The film revolves around an escaped convict who finds the body of a man in his childhood friend's house.
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.
The Unexpected Guest is a novelization by Charles Osborne of the 1958 play of the same name by crime fiction writer Agatha Christie and was first published in the UK by HarperCollins on 6 September 1999, and on 1 October 1999 in the US by St. Martin's Press.
Charles Thomas Osborne was an Australian journalist, theatre and opera critic, poet and novelist. He was the assistant editor of The London Magazine from 1958 until 1966, literature director of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1971 until 1986, and chief theatre critic of Daily Telegraph (London) from 1986 to 1991.
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.
Endless Night is a 1972 British horror-mystery film directed by Sidney Gilliat and starring Hayley Mills, Britt Ekland, Per Oscarsson, Hywel Bennett, and George Sanders. Based on the 1967 novel Endless Night by Agatha Christie, the plot follows a newlywed couple who feel threatened after building their dream home on cursed land.
Media related to The Unexpected Guest (play) at Wikimedia Commons
