 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Unexpected Guest: Play (Acting Edition) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
The Unusual Suspects
30 Dec 2008
Format:Paperback
First, I must say that the information for this ISBN number is incorrect. This number is for the actual play version that Agatha Christie wrote, not the novelization by Charles Osborne. Before I read his adaptations, I like to read the original play by Christie, so this review will be about the play, not the novel.
As with most Agatha Christie mysteries, whether written in book form or as a play, the murders that take place in closed situations, where all suspects are contained within one household, are perhaps the most fascinating and complex. "The Unexpected Guest" is no different. It begins on an extremely foggy November evening, with a stranger stumbling into the home of Richard and Laura Warwick, after running his car into the ditch. The stranger, Michael Starkwedder, finds Richard Warwick slumped dead in his wheelchair, and his wife in the corner holding the gun admitting to his murder. Starkwedder is struck by her situation and immediately decides to help her, concocting a far-fetched scheme of revenge and planting evidence on the body. When the police arrive to investigate, they find a plethora of suspects, for Richard Warwick was a man of mean temper and cruel humor, a man who many believed had it coming to him.
The action of "The Unexpected Guest" is exceptionally brisk, with much being revealed in few words. Some characters are not what they seemed to be while others are all too stereotypical in their actions and thoughts. The build-up to the final twist revelation is well-paced and enough to throw the police off the trail of the true murderer. If you read very carefully you should be able to figure out who most likely murdered Richard Warwick, but the why may be shocking.
As with most Agatha Christie mysteries, whether written in book form or as a play, the murders that take place in closed situations, where all suspects are contained within one household, are perhaps the most fascinating and complex. "The Unexpected Guest" is no different. It begins on an extremely foggy November evening, with a stranger stumbling into the home of Richard and Laura Warwick, after running his car into the ditch. The stranger, Michael Starkwedder, finds Richard Warwick slumped dead in his wheelchair, and his wife in the corner holding the gun admitting to his murder. Starkwedder is struck by her situation and immediately decides to help her, concocting a far-fetched scheme of revenge and planting evidence on the body. When the police arrive to investigate, they find a plethora of suspects, for Richard Warwick was a man of mean temper and cruel humor, a man who many believed had it coming to him.
The action of "The Unexpected Guest" is exceptionally brisk, with much being revealed in few words. Some characters are not what they seemed to be while others are all too stereotypical in their actions and thoughts. The build-up to the final twist revelation is well-paced and enough to throw the police off the trail of the true murderer. If you read very carefully you should be able to figure out who most likely murdered Richard Warwick, but the why may be shocking.
Sharp Ending But Otherwise Uninspired
30 Aug 2011
Format:Paperback
Although Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is best known as a mystery novelist, she was also a dramatist of significant stature, generating a number of popular plays and at least three landmarks of the stage: the 1943 AND THEN THERE WERE NONE (also known as TEN LITTLE INDIANS); the 1952 THE MOUSETRAP, which is the longest running play in the world; and the 1953 WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION. These and a great number of her other plays have been widely published, often in collections of her work. 1958's THE UNEXPECTED GUEST, however, is someting of a rarity. You are unlikely to find it at your local book store or library. Although audiences liked it reasonably well at the time, it was not in the same league as her genuine stunners, and it did not have an extensive run, and it did not receive a Broadway performance.
The play is in two acts and begins with Mrs. Laura Warwick more or less standing with a gun over the body of her wheelchair-bound husband. It is a foggy night, and even as she is thus posed, stranger Michael Starkwedder, whose car has run off the road, stops for help. Murder or not, he is rather taken with Laura and rather than call the police he decides to save her from what seems certain arrest by hatching an elaborate cover-up that involves pinning the murder on an old enemy of Laura's husband. In the second act, however, Starkwedder's affection for Laura cools when he discoveres that she has been having an affair with neighbor Julian Farrar, and it suddenly seems quite possible that there may be more than one motive for murder under the roof. Laura or Julian might have done it in order to marry; Warwick's ward Jan, mentally handicapped and fascinated with violence, might have done it in order to avoid being sent to an institution; Warwick's mother might have done it, for she recognized her son as a petty monster intent upon making everyone's life as miserable as possible. But even with all these choices, when the solution comes, it is quite a surprise.
Even so, the play drags. There is a lot of talk, talk, talk, and in between the interminable conversations one has to swallow all sorts of unlikely conincidences that range from the arrival of Starkwedder to the discovery that Julian had actually been at the house earlier that evening. 1958 audiences were accustomed to leaps of faith when it came to murder mysteries, but contemporary audiences are not, and any theatre group that produces this play is likely to find its patrons doing a lot of eye-rolling. The ending may be memorable, but the THE UNEXPECTED GUEST lacks the same splash and dash as Christie's most famous plays, and it is probably best left to hardcore readers.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
The play is in two acts and begins with Mrs. Laura Warwick more or less standing with a gun over the body of her wheelchair-bound husband. It is a foggy night, and even as she is thus posed, stranger Michael Starkwedder, whose car has run off the road, stops for help. Murder or not, he is rather taken with Laura and rather than call the police he decides to save her from what seems certain arrest by hatching an elaborate cover-up that involves pinning the murder on an old enemy of Laura's husband. In the second act, however, Starkwedder's affection for Laura cools when he discoveres that she has been having an affair with neighbor Julian Farrar, and it suddenly seems quite possible that there may be more than one motive for murder under the roof. Laura or Julian might have done it in order to marry; Warwick's ward Jan, mentally handicapped and fascinated with violence, might have done it in order to avoid being sent to an institution; Warwick's mother might have done it, for she recognized her son as a petty monster intent upon making everyone's life as miserable as possible. But even with all these choices, when the solution comes, it is quite a surprise.
Even so, the play drags. There is a lot of talk, talk, talk, and in between the interminable conversations one has to swallow all sorts of unlikely conincidences that range from the arrival of Starkwedder to the discovery that Julian had actually been at the house earlier that evening. 1958 audiences were accustomed to leaps of faith when it came to murder mysteries, but contemporary audiences are not, and any theatre group that produces this play is likely to find its patrons doing a lot of eye-rolling. The ending may be memorable, but the THE UNEXPECTED GUEST lacks the same splash and dash as Christie's most famous plays, and it is probably best left to hardcore readers.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
