Reception
The Times was not overly enthusiastic in its review of 15 December 1954 when it said, "Miss Agatha Christie tries this time to combine a story of murder with a comedy of character. As Edgar Wallace showed more than once, this thing can be done. There is no reason why the special tension of the one should not support the special tension of the other. In this instance, however, the support is at best intermittent. There is a risk that those that are chiefly concerned to find out who murdered the odious blackmailer will hardly regard the solution as one of the author's happiest. There is a like risk that the rest of the audience will be bored with a comedy which has to accommodate itself to the requirements of a long police interrogation. The common ground on which both sections may stand is dangerously small." The reviewer admitted that, "the thriller gives all the characters a turn and yet contrives at the end to produce a twist. It is a twist which surprises rather than satisfies the logical mind." but they concluded, "the play as a whole is the least exciting and not the most amusing of the three Agatha Christie's now running in London."
The Nottingham preview was the production reviewed in The Guardian on 28 September 1954, rather than the later West End opening. The critic was not over-enthusiastic, calling it, "Confusing" and stating, "The piece hardly calls for moralising, though there will always be people who find it hard to laugh at jokes about the disposal of corpses. Yet it is as comedy, rather than mystery, that it must stand or fall. Miss Lockwood, though born to be sincere, has the job here of hauling rather substantial red herrings all over the stage to try and give us the impression that she is a sly minx who has either done the deed herself or else is shielding her neurotic little stepdaughter. Tonight's audience evidently fell deeply for the wiles of Miss Lockwood. Artful finger on chin, or fluttering hand emphasising some particularly disingenuous point, she earns every word of the police inspector's tribute when he says: 'You haven't made things easy for us with your tall stories.'"
Read more about this topic: Spider's Web (play)
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