About the Play:

Spider's Web is a full-length mystery by Agatha Christie. In a mysterious mansion, one woman tries to solve a murder while keeping her guests entertained and her family out of trouble! Complete with secret rooms, vanishing bodies, and signature plot twists, Spider's Web is a tangled web that will ensnare your audience in mystery and mayhem.

Spider's Web is a tale of murder, blackmail and deception. Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, the second wife of Henry Hailsham-Brown, is adept at spinning tales of adventure for their bored diplomatic circle. But her amusing games become deadly serious when she finds her normally entertaining and unflappable self in the middle of a drawing room murder. Not wanting to embarrass her husband, she is desperate to dispose of the body before he arrives with a very important person. To accomplish this task she enlists the help of her guests. Not surprisingly, everyone in the house is a suspect, even Clarissa's young stepdaughter Pippa. Worse still, the victim is the man who broke up Henry's first marriage. Hilarity ensues with the arrival of wry detective, Inspector Lord. Clarissa's fast talking places her and Pippa in some hair raising experiences. By the time Henry arrives, the murderer has been unmasked and all is normal so normal that Henry is unable to believe Clarissa when she explains why there are no refreshments for their honoured guest.

Spider's Web had pre-West End engagement at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham, followed by a short national tour, and then had its West End premiere at the Savoy Theatre in London, and was her second longest-running play, next to The Mousetrap. The play is regularly performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 3 female, 8 male

What people say:

"So closely woven with thrills and comedy that shocks and laughs are about fifty fifty." — The Guardian (London)

"What sets Spider's Web apart from most specimens of its overstuffed genre, is that its real motive is fun; all else – dropped clues, plot contrivances – is secondary. And the Lady of Copplestone Court, Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, has a talent to amuse." — The New York Times

About the Playwright:

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and, in many languages, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote 66 crime novels, 150 short story collections, over 20 plays, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott. Her work includes Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and the genre-defining And Then There Were None. In addition several of her original works were adapted for the stage by third parties.