Terror and hilarity in Chichester Festival Theatre's The Cat and The Canary

SussexWorld

As midnight strikes, a storm rages over the wilds of Bodmin Moor. The surviving descendants of the long-deceased Cyrus West have gathered in his remote mansion to discover which of them is the chosen heir to his fortune.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Now, astonishingly

00:07it's flashed by, we are reaching the very last play in the Chichester Festival Theatre

00:11summer season, which is The Cat and the Canary, and welcoming you back to the Festival Theatre

00:15after plenty of successes here, Nick Haverson. Now, Nick, you are promising us something

00:20hilarious, aren't you? I am. I would defy anybody to go into that

00:26theatre and not laugh. I mean, it's a murder mystery, so there's an element of you thinking,

00:31oh, hang on, should I be trying to figure out who is the perpetrator of a murder, possibly,

00:37if a murder happens? But the way that you would be taken through the story, yeah, I

00:44would defy you not to have a little giggle or a big guffaw.

00:48Is there an element of whodunit? We're going to be trying to work things out.

00:52There is, yeah, very much an element of a whodunit. And you're never quite sure, in true

00:57sort of Agatha Christie style, if we use her as reference, you're not quite sure who it may

01:02have been. It's all done in relative mystery. And although there's not a detective there to

01:07try and sort it out, the detective is the audience. You have to try and come to your

01:12own conclusion. You might be slightly surprised. Do we stand a chance at this?

01:17I think you stand a chance in figuring out who it could be. But it could be one of six

01:25and possibly more. So it's a tricky one. It's a tricky one. But yeah, it will keep you guessing.

01:31And you're saying there have been a succession of versions of this. It's been adapted and adapted

01:36again. But with each successive version, it's become funnier. So that's heading in the right

01:40direction. I think so. And I think that's the right way to go. I mean,

01:46we talk about the sort of genre of the murder mystery. And yeah, you can play it very seriously.

01:52But in your serious playing of that, it becomes funny. Because we've seen so many detective

01:58stories, this, you know, the Poirot's, the Agatha Christie's, we play Cluedo at home.

02:02You know, all of those elements, I think, are brought in to this play. And it becomes like a

02:09game. And, you know, for moments that you may be horrified, there are other moments that are

02:14deeply hilarious. And we play those to the hilt. And, you know, we have the sort of

02:21true conviction to do that. It becomes funnier, the more serious you become,

02:25the, you know, the stakes become higher. And the play becomes funnier.

02:29It sounds a fabulous way to take us into the winter season. Nick, lovely to speak to you.

02:34Thanks for your time.

02:35You too, Phil. Thank you very much.

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