Agatha Christie on drugs

8:47am Thursday 24th April 2008

WITH more plot twists than accidents waiting to happen in a Casualty omnibus, Sleuth is like watching Agatha Christie on amphetamines.

Anthony Shaffer's play, brought back into the limelight by last year's film version starring Michael Caine and Jude Law, is a thriller about a detective fiction writer and the young man sleeping with his wife.

Eccentric writer Andrew Wyke invites Milo Tindle to his country manor and makes an unusual proposition - that Milo breaks into the manor and steals some jewels.

After this, a barrage of plotting, dressing up, odd clues and interjections by a sinister laughing Jolly Jack Tar sailor model ensue.

Andrew (Simon MacCorkindale) ensures the mood of the show swings manically from comic to threatening, while Michael Praed as Milo does a convincing job as a gullible man-about-town who eventually turns sour.

Although MacCorkindale hams it up a bit in the first half, he redeems himself in the gripping second. As the plot unfolds, then veers off in unexpected directions, Joe Harmston's direction of pace ensures you can barely risk taking a breath.

The set is a little disappointing, apart from the aforementioned model sailor, whose almost demonic presence, plus MacCorkindale's slowly unravelling writer, make for a terrifying ending.

This show works in ways the recent film couldn't and reminds viewers how the theatre can be so much more immediate and convincing.

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