PROMOTION
MUCH-loved super sleuth Hercule Poirot appeared in 33 novels and more than 50 short stories by Agatha Christie - but only one play. Black Coffee is that play – a classic Christie whodunnit – and you can see it at the Opera House this month.
Intrigue and suspense form the back-bone of Black Coffee, a classic spy-thriller
It’s showing from 17 to 22 November with Jason Durr, best known as PC Mike Bradley in TV’s Heartbeat, starring as the Belgian detective with the nifty moustache.
Jason was most recently seen at the Opera House playing the lead role in 2013’s Sherlock Holmes: The Best Kept Secret. Other screen roles include Midsomer Murders, Miss Marple, New Tricks, Sharpe’s Battle and many more.
Jason is joined by an all-star cast including rising starlet Georgina Leonidas who shot to international fame playing the cursed Katie Bell in the Harry Potter films, Deborah Grant who you’ll recognise from TV’s Not Going Out, Peak Practice and Bergerac, and Oliver Mellor who played Dr Matt Carter in Coronation Street.
Also appearing are Agatha Christie Company regulars Gary Mavers who is best known for playing heartthrob doctor Andrew Attwood in Peak Practice, and Ben Nealon, perhaps best loved for his role as Capt Forsythe in the ITV drama Soldier Soldier.
It’s a play bursting with acting talent but what about the story itself? Black Coffee is quintessential Christie: an English country estate is thrown into chaos following the murder of eccentric inventor Sir Claud Amory, and the theft of his new earth shattering formula. Arriving at the estate just moments too late, one man immediately senses a potent brew of despair, treachery, and deception amid the estate's occupants. That man is Hercule Poirot.
The great Dame Christie is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Poirot debuted in her 1920 novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles and went on to become one of world’s most cherished and long-lived fictional characters. He is the only fictional character to have received a front-page obituary in the New York Times.
Intrigue and suspense form the back-bone of Black Coffee, a classic spy-thriller which follows The Agatha Christie Theatre Company’s hugely successful productions of The Hollow, The Unexpected Guest, And Then There Were None, Spider’s Web, Witness for the Prosecution, Verdict, Murder on the Nile and Go Back For Murder.
Black Coffee is at the Opera House, Manchester from Monday 17 to Saturday 22 November. Tickets start from just £15.
