Curtain Up (71 page)

When Saunders had taken possession of the Duchess on 2 October he was obliged to honour the contract with the incumbent production, Arthur Lovegrove's hugely popular comedy, starring Irene Handl, which had transferred from the Strand Theatre only two weeks previously. As the landlord, he would have been unable to terminate the production's contract with the theatre unless its weekly income fell below its weekly costs.

On 5 December 1961, Cork wrote to Christie, now in India:

I entirely agree with you that it would have been marvellous to get it into the West End for Christmas, but alas, the last hope – the Comedy [Theatre] – faded away yesterday. This is not personal to us, as there are five plays that have been doing excellent business in the country that are having to fold up as they cannot get into the West End. There was
certainly part of the audience at Oxford that liked Triple Bill but unfortunately the business for the preceding and succeeding week [i.e. for other plays appearing at Oxford's New Theatre] amounted in each case to twice what we played to. Peter is coming to think that our best hope of getting a success at any other time than Christmas is to get a star in the bill, but this might involve more re-writing than you would want to undertake. Anyway, this problem is one that can wait until you get home again.
⁷⁵

Saunders wrote on the same day to confirm the postponement of the West End transfer: ‘At least it gives us the time to reassess the position with your help rather than in your absence . . . we are now playing the Patient with the ending that you wrote, i.e. the Inspector disclosing who it was, and I think that this is probably the best thing, anyway until you come back.' Rosalind's role as arbitrator was not, in the end, required, and a version similar to the one that we now have in which the inspector names the culprit as they step from behind a curtain, was used for the remainder of the first tour.

There in fact appear to have been a number of attempts to create a new ending for
The Patient
during the course of the first tour, even including one put forward by the stage manager in which the villain of the piece commits suicide, for which a script still survives in the Gregg papers. ‘Can you imagine Agatha's face!' wrote Saunders to Gregg.
⁷⁶
In Gregg's rehearsal script
The Patient
simply ends:

       
INSPECTOR: So now let's see if you're who I think you are. (Lays hold of screen) . . .

The rest of the page is then torn out, with the words END TO FOLLOW written in blue ink.
⁷⁷

It seems to me unlikely that Saunders would have pursued the idea of a West End run for
Rule of Three
at the end of 1961 with any great enthusiasm. He evidently felt that work needed to be done on the piece, and with Christie away travelling,
there was little prospect of this being carried out. Lack of theatre availability is the classic excuse offered to playwrights by reluctant producers, followed closely by the need for star casting, and Saunders may well in any case have wanted to ensure that he could eventually host the piece at the Duchess once it had been rewritten and Mrs Puffin had flown. It is also apparent from his correspondence with Hubert Gregg that they were less than happy with the cast they had assembled; of thirteen who opened in Aberdeen only five were re-engaged for the West End the following year, although some of them, of course, may not have been available. The halcyon days of casting Richard Attenborough and Margaret Lockwood in Christie plays, although relatively recent, seemed long gone.

Auditions were held for cast replacements, and amongst the candidates turned down for a role was Honor Blackman, much to Saunders and Gregg's subsequent embarrassment; her first episodes in
The Avengers
were broadcast in the autumn of 1962, as
Rule of Three
finally made its way into the West End, and two years later she was to play Pussy Galore in
Goldfinger
. Amongst those re-engaged from the first tour was Margot Boyd, who had notably achieved a good review in the role of Miss Williams in
Go Back for Murder
. Christie, it has to be said, had done her producer and director no favours on the casting front by concocting an evening of three short plays consisting of a four-hander guignol, a nine-hander melodrama and a twelve-hander comedy, and it is clear from Gregg's notes, and Saunders' payroll, that the casting process was challenging on a number of levels.

In August 1962, Gregg wrote a six-page letter to Saunders from his place in the Algarve which discussed various matters relating to the remounting of the production. The first thing it addressed was the vexed issue of the staging of Alec's murder of John inside the chest without the audience, Sandra or David noticing:

If Alec kills John before the action of the play begins there is no reason for the air holes. It is unlikely that John would
lie in the chest alive while Alec drills the air holes. . . . Alec wouldn't have stabbed John outside the chest because of cluttering the place with blood, etc. If he stabbed him inside, as I say, why bore holes? Moreover, too, there's something chilling about the idea of a live man lying there listening. Alec may have managed the stabbing badly, or the fault may have been mine if you felt that the audience weren't held here. My own feeling was they were interested in the antics of Alec – in his movement about the room and, if some of the audience realise the truth (that he was stabbing a man) they were elated at their own cleverness. If you feel strongly enough by all means let John be dead before the curtain rises. But I think if we do this we are shying away from what I'm sure Agatha intends to be the high spot of the play, ‘John was killed more or less in front of our eyes'. Remember that the stabbing is the only real ‘introduction' of John to the audience. If we have just a box with a stiff in it does the description by David of what must have happened lose impact? Why don't we sort this out in, or just before, rehearsal? Perhaps with Agatha? Even see it performed as is once again before deciding?
⁷⁸

Hubert Gregg's papers contain a loose-leaf copy of a four-page additional scene, evidently intended to be a new opening for the play, in which we actually meet John, so that the three-hander that became a four-hander is now a five-hander. ‘As the curtain rises, Alec is kneeling beside the chest drilling holes. He is in morning dress, but minus his coat, which is thrown over a nearby chair. John Grey, a pleasant, well built man is pacing restlessly.'
⁷⁹
They are preparing the chest so that John can lie in it and eavesdrop on Sandra and her lover, and Alec is provoking John with tales of his wife's infidelity:

       
ALEC: A pity you're so old fashioned, John.

       
JOHN: What do you mean?

       
ALEC: The modern husband knows how to accept infidelity, I'm told. You're not like that.

Alec, who has been to a royal garden party, has gained entry to the flat using a key that he had cut for his friend ‘Benjy' when they were using it together during the owners' absence. He clears up the sawdust, looks down at his dustpan and brush, and remarks, ‘Quite the little housemaid, aren't I?' John eventually gets into the chest, but just as he does Alec suddenly ‘draws the knife from behind his back and stabs John, out of sight of the audience. Apparently, he wipes the knife clean on the embroidery. Then he goes to replace the Kurdish knife in its sheath. He closes the lid of the chest, and begins to dust, carefully removing fingerprints.'

This scene was presumably written before rehearsals started for the second production, in order to deal with some of the issues raised in the correspondence between Saunders and Gregg. It provides a less unlikely scenario than Alec successfully killing John in the chest without the two other people in the room noticing, but still gives the audience the frisson of the eventual realisation that the murder was effectively carried out before their very eyes. The scene was never submitted to the Lord Chamberlain's office, so it can never have been tried out in performance, and no author is credited. There are no references to it in Christie's notes or draft material, so there is a possibility that it was actually written by Gregg. If that is the case then I have to take my hat off to him for an excellent fake.

Gregg's letter to Saunders goes on to discuss casting the new production of
Rule of Three
at some length, reviewing the previous actors' performances and suggesting who should be re-engaged and who replaced. The first tour had included a notable appearance by a poodle belonging to one of the actors, but it seems that the actor concerned must have been amongst those being considered for replacement: ‘the dog would be a serious “miss”', says Gregg, ‘I certainly think we should have one.' It is not clear whether they succeeded in finding a substitute canine.

Gregg also touches on the dilemma that Saunders was facing in his new role as theatre owner. It seems that
Goodnight Mrs
Puffin
had been playing to poor box office figures during the summer of 1962, at last giving Saunders the opportunity to terminate its contract at the Duchess. But this would have been too early to assist with the West End scheduling of
Rule of Three
, and in any case a successful comedy could expect its business to pick up as Christmas approached. ‘What a difficult decision you have re
Puffin
', wrote Gregg. ‘Can you make them transfer if they climb above their break figure after falling below it? Indeed would you want to – not only from the kindness view but from the business angle? What you want is another theatre of your own. Simple.' Saunders wrote straight back to Gregg confirming that three weeks of rehearsal would commence on 29 October, with a tour opening on 19 November and the West End run in the week of 17 December.
⁸⁰
Saunders makes it clear that this is contingent on Christie herself being available for the first performance week; her absence had been felt the previous year, when the production got off to its false start.

The Stage
subsequently announced that the new tour would open in Wolverhampton before playing Bath, Birmingham and the Nottingham Theatre Royal (no longer fulfilling its once traditional role as the opening venue), with the West End premiere set for Thursday 20 December.
⁸¹
Goodnight Mrs Puffin
, which was having a ‘successful run at the Duchess' after transferring from the Strand Theatre, would move to the Duke of York's Theatre. Saunders must have done exactly the deal that Gregg had suggested with the producers of
Goodnight Mrs Puffin
, allowing them to continue at the Duchess through the summer despite their poor box office figures on condition that they vacated the theatre in time to allow
Rule of Three
in before Christmas. At last, everything was set. The Christie theatre brand was, however, to suffer an unexpected setback before
Rule of Three
could finally make its London debut.

Taking advantage of the continued delays in presenting Christie's latest dramatic offering in the West End, the irrepressible Bertie Meyer had bypassed Cork and approached her directly at the end of June 1962 with a suggestion for a West End revival of
Ten Little Niggers
, eliciting the response: ‘I think
it would be fun to give “Ten Little Niggers” a new lease of life! I don't know what production difficulties there are or if it “dates” – anyway talk it over with Edmund Cork because he always arranges all these things and knows far more about all my affairs than I do.'
⁸²
Despite the advanced state of Saunders' plans for
Rule of Three,
and presumably in his full knowledge,
a licence was duly issued to Meyer; such was the eighty-five year-old impresario's status within the West End firmament that neither Cork nor Saunders were likely to have wanted to argue with the man who had produced Christie's first West End hit. On 21 August
The Times
carried a story under the headline ‘Famous Thriller to be revived' announcing that
Ten Little Niggers
, having been presented in productions around the world, would open at St Martin's Theatre on 10 September. On the same day as this announcement, but without making reference to it, Saunders wrote to Gregg in Portugal to confirm arrangements for
Rule of Three.

It was not the first time that Meyer's seemingly somewhat arbitrary agenda had conflicted with Saunders' well-laid plans; and it would be fair to say that to have the theatre opposite
The Mousetrap
opening a revival of
Ten Little Niggers
produced by a rival management, with Christie's latest West End offering due to open just over three months later, was not particularly helpful.

Although the American civil rights movement was reaching a crescendo, and Martin Luther King was to deliver his ‘I have a dream' speech the following year, the idea of emblazoning the play's naïve 1943 title across the front of a theatre in post-
Empire Windrush
London, with the decolonisation of Africa in full swing, did not appear to raise any eyebrows. Or, if it did, then they were raised behind the scenes. In September 1962,
The Stage
reported, apparently without irony, that Langston Hughes' Gospel musical
Black Nativity
was transferring from the Criterion to the Phoenix on the same night that
Ten Little Niggers
was due to open at the St Martin's,
⁸³
and
The Times
unashamedly headlined its review ‘Back to Nigger Island'.
⁸⁴
A letter subsequently appeared in the
Guardian
politely suggesting
that it might be time to consider a title change for the play,
⁸⁵
but it was not until a production in Birmingham in 1966 that protests outside the theatre were actually to achieve this. Since then it has been known as
And Then There Were None
, the title adopted for the American publication of the novel in 1940, although there were certainly still productions touring the UK under the original title in the 1970s, and the book itself was not renamed in the UK until the 1980s.