Theatre review: A Murder is Announced

THERE WAS A moment, a few years ago, when the rules around Agatha Christie theatre productions in the UK seemed to be changing. Under the banner of the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, producer Bill Kenwright and director Joe Harmston started to shift the atmosphere slightly while still giving full weight to the popular whodunnit narratives, creating art deco designs that reflected Agatha Christie’s view of herself as a modern woman of the mid 20th century, and giving full rein to her decidedly ironic view of British upper middle-class ideas and prejudices; in Christie’s world, after all, it’s rarely the “sinister foreigner” who turns out to be the murderer.