Spider's Web: A Stage Play

by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie Full Length, Mystery

Characters: 8 male, 3 female

Interior Set

Clarissa, the second wife of Henry Hailsham Brown, is adept at spinning tales of adventure for their bored diplomatic circle. When a murder takes place in her drawing room she finds live drama much harder to cope with, especially as she suspects the murderer might be her young stepdaughter Pippa. Worse still, the victim is the man who broke up Henry's first marriage. Moreover Henry will be arriving shortly with a V.I.P. who might take a dim view of bodies in the drawing room. 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 honored guest.

"So closely woven with thrills and comedy that shocks and laughs are about fifty fifty."-London Guardian

Genres: Agatha Christie, Mystery, Plays, Audiobook, Crime, Fiction, Classics

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

This best-selling author of all time wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in romance. Her books sold more than a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. According to Index Translationum, people translated her works into 103 languages at least, the most for an individual author. Of the most enduring figures in crime literature, she created Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She atuhored The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theater.

Associated Names:
Agata Christie
Agata Kristi
Агата Кристи (Russian)
Агата Крісті (Ukrainian)
Αγκάθα Κρίστι (Greek)
アガサ クリスティ (Japanese)
阿嘉莎·克莉絲蒂 (Chinese)

Reviews

[Alan (the Lone Librarian) Teder · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a Web We Weave*
A review of the Concord Theatricals/Samuel French online eBook (January 22, 2014) of the original Samuel French playscript (Performed 1954 / published 1957).

JEREMY. What do you want us to do, Clarissa?
CLARISSA. Get rid of the body.
SIR ROWLAND. My dear, don't talk nonsense. This is murder.

Clarissa Hailsham-Brown discovers a dead body in the parlour of the house that she shares with her diplomat husband and stepdaughter. She is determined to protect her suspected murderer and enlists the aid of a group of friends to set up alibis so that no one in the house can be a suspect. Chaos ensues when the police arrive and start to think there is something fishy going on. The lies pile up until they become too difficult to sustain, but the truth itself is also unbelievable.

Although this is a murder mystery, it also plays as a comic farce and that combination makes it rather delightful. In the end Clarissa has to invent a more believable story for the police because they are not likely to accept the truth as an explanation. Despite all the machinations and misdirection, the murderer is still revealed at the conclusion.

The full length theatrical play Spider's Web counts against my Complete Agatha Christie binge read goal, so I now have 6 novels (including 3 remaining Westmacotts), 1 short story collections, 5 full-length theatrical plays, 2 short 1-Act plays and 1 autobiography left to go.

Footnote
* I took my lede header from Walter Scott's poem Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field (1808) where the original line is "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!"

Trivia and Links and Reckoning
Spider's Web was adapted as a later novelization by Australian writer Charles Osborne as Spider's Web (2000).

Spider's Web had several TV film and feature film adaptations from 1955 to 1982 which you can see listed at Wikipedia here.

As best as I know, the 5 remaining full length Agatha Christie plays on my TBR list are:
The Stranger (1932).
Akhnaton (1937).
Murder on the Nile (1944).
A Daughter's A Daughter (1956).
Fiddlers Three (1972).
In addition there are several full length plays that have been posthumously adapted from Agatha Christie novels by other people, but I am not counting them as part of the canon. For a complete listing see the works at Concord Theatricals listed under Agatha Christie.
The above list does not include the shorter one-act plays and/or radio plays.

[Antonella Imperiali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho letto questo titolo nella versione teatrale, una commedia gialla in tre atti, e mi sono divertita tantissimo.
Situazioni paradossali che fanno sorridere, con protagonisti brillanti che movimentano le singole scene.
Un cenno sulla trama, piuttosto semplice: la padrona di casa scopre in salotto il cadavere di un uomo con il quale aveva discusso poco tempo prima; pensa che ad ucciderlo sia stata la figliastra, una ragazzina fragile oggetto della discussione, e cerca di coprirla facendosi aiutare da alcuni amici ospiti della villa, cercando di procrastinare la soluzione del dramma.
Però qualcuno chiama la polizia e le cose si complicano, ma - fra una battuta e l’altra, tra una versione e l’altra di questa strana situazione - la verità emerge.
Non sarà il miglior lavoro della Christie, ma sicuramente è il più spassoso che io abbia letto.


🗣 Parola del mese (giu/24): ragno
✍️ AC

[Pam M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed Christie's books when I was a teener and I still enjoy them now. Her website describes her to be the best-selling novelist of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She had under her belt 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections. Prolific and timeless! Well, this particular book was made to be a stage play, and the dialogues and narration are dead-giveaways. But this detail does not take away the element of surprise and the humor that's inherently Agatha Christie.

[Farhana Sufi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice one. I hope I can see some of Christie's mystery plays staged in UK some time.

[Gail Sacharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was originally written by Agatha Christie as a play & then turned into a novel by Charles Osborne. I had read the novel version first, then I had seen the film version, before I read it as a play. All versions stick close to the same sequence of events with the same characters, same murderer, & same reason for the murder which makes it different from most of the Christie plays adapted from her novels. Most of those trim unnecessary characters, drop the star detective, & make changes to the story &, in some cases, the outcome. This play tells of one evening when a murder happens in a country house being leased by a member of the Foreign Office & his second wife & daughter. The victim is the shady new husband of his first wife whom he divorced. After the discovery of the murder, there is a comedy of errors as the second wife tries to avoid a scandal for her husband who is bringing back high government officials to the house. Her guests, friends, & employees all become involved in trying to cover it up & get rid of the police before the delegation arrives. It is quite amusing, full of red herrings & crazy antics & is a very enjoyable story.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very twisty and entertaining.

[Rosa Cristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta historia es diferente a las clásicas investigaciones, de la escritora. El personaje principal es Clarissa, conocida entre sus amistades por ser muy bromista y tener mucha imaginación. Clarissa descubre un cadaver en su casa y decide deshacerse de él, con ayuda de sus amigos, todo esto para evitar un escando, pues su esposo es diplomático y ese mismo día recibirán una visita muy importante. Fue un historia ligera, dinámica y con chispas de humor.

[Jovana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Da ne piše ime autora, ni u bunilu ne bih pomislila na Agatu Kristi. Ne znam da li uopšte mogu da poverujem da je ovo njeno delo...

[Hannah Duckett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute loved this book. It was such a page turner and I couldn’t put it down. Loved the characters and the story and was impressed I figured out the murderer

[Sarka B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good and clever play by Agatha Christie. Again surprising ending. I am glad I could read it.

[Oceane · Rating 4 out of 5]

J’adoreee, je vais clairement lire les autres de la collection

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I didn't realize until I had checked it out, that this was one of Agatha Christie's stage plays. Oops.
However, being a theatre kid, I leapt at the change to read one of her stage works.

So Clarissa is the second wife of a wealthy politician, bored with political life, who upon discovering the first wife's new husband murdered in her living room and her 12 year old stepdaughter the prime suspect, she will do anything to protect her. Full of equally delicious characters, motives, and good humor, this stage play is just as good as her novels.
Though the play doesn't feature Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, it is up to Clarissa, her servants, and her friends to solve the case with 2 snooping tipped off inspectors breathing down their necks.

Would love to see a book group read this one aloud!

[Patricia Fischer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not a fan of Agatha Christie as a playwright. That isn’t to say that some of her work doesn’t translate well on the stage. THE MOUSETRAP and WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION are fabulous plays, but they were both first written as stories, and their plots and characters were already well-thought out. In BLACK COFFEE and SPIDER’S WEB, I found the storylines muddled and the characterizations weak. (Although I am sure that Margaret Lockwood and the rest of the cast did their utmost to bring the characters to life.)
I have also found that I don’t enjoy reading plays as much as I used to. I was a high school drama director for many years, and I used to love reading scripts in order to determine if they were right for my group, envisioning how I would stage them. Since I’ve retired from that, I don’t get as much pleasure from reading them.

[Gillian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Definitely not one of her best. Clues littered about the script in order to be explained later and irritatingly unbelievable, upper class characters. Trying to decide how it might work on stage, I came to the conclusion it was one of those plays where I would be thinking about how much time my car still had on the parking meter.

[The Mystery Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spider's Web: A Stage Play by Agatha Christie is a fun mystery that balances thrills and laughs really well.

Clarissa is married to diplomat Henry Hailsham Brown, and she loves telling wild adventure stories to their boring diplomatic friends. But when someone actually gets murdered in her drawing room, she discovers real drama is way harder to deal with than made-up stories. She thinks her young stepdaughter Pippa might be the killer, which is terrifying. Plus the victim is the guy who wrecked Henry's first marriage, so that's complicated. And Henry's about to come home with some important VIP who definitely won't appreciate a dead body in the living room. Clarissa has to think fast and talk even faster to figure out who did it and clean everything up before Henry gets there.

I'd already read this as a novel (adapted by Charles Osborne) before getting to the play version. Both versions really show off Christie's sense of timing and how well she balances the comedy with the suspense.

Clarissa is great—quick-thinking and funny even when things are falling apart. The play moves fast and keeps you hooked the whole way through.

A really entertaining Christie that proves she could do more than just straight mysteries.

#SpidersWeb #AgathaChristie #MysteryPlay #ClassicMystery #Theatre

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this play; I've never seen it staged. If I were reviewing a staged version, I'm sure I wouldn't have this one complaint, which, I admit, is rather petty. Agatha Christie cripples the dialogue with blocking notes. Was she aware a play's director is capable of making these decisions? Somehow, someway, Shakespeare plays are staged and there's no blocking notes within his text. (The writer gets up, pours a glass of water in kitchen sink LC, then returns to desk RC) The continual description of character movement inserted in their dialogue became rather annoying after a while. (The writer gets up from desk RC and moves to French doors C) It's like, damn Agatha, let the director direct the play--just provide the dialogue.

As for the play itself, it's rather amusing. Though they are stereotypes, I enjoyed the character portrayals. I could readily see (even with the stage directions) how this play would work well with a live audience. There's a lot of humor and Christie keeps the pace moving forward. I also enjoyed the character Clarissa's continual knocking on the fourth wall by alluding to plays or detective novels as the action on the stage becomes more incredible and unbelievable.

All in all, a good play for what it's designed to do: To entertain.

[Panda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got the audio version of this without knowing it was stage play.

I think is would make for an easy play though however as a novel...

Agatha Christie is the queen of murder mysteries for a reason, her reasoning is sound and the plot always interesting with a lot of attention to the human element.

Because this is written as a play however it reads differently with little acts and clues littered around as stage instructions giving it away on paper.

I am taking away one star from my original 4 for the "love" element though. All the male characters are in love with this one women and will literally help her move a body. Trouble is the women is an ass. She is not annoying or anything it's just all her "charm" seems to come from publicly humiliating others.

The "just a prank bro" thing didn't really work for me. It is a good read though.

[Taylor's♡Shelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A dead body is terribly unmanageable."

There's something about the purely expository medium of theatre that lends itself to humour far more than the medium of the novel. There was a sort of quick-witted, Wildean whimsy that emanated from Spider's Web that I was pleasantly surprised to find after reading some of Christie's other plays.

The conclusion of this play actually really reminds me of the conclusion of one of Christie's other plays, The Unexpected Guest. However, I really can't say how without spoiling the murderers of both plays. So I won't.

I'll definitely end up reading Osborne's novel as well. I liked his novelization of The Unexpected Guest, so I have high hopes for this one too.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy reading stage plays and was expecially taken with Agatha Christie's "Spider's Web" from the mid 1950s. My husband and I had seen "The Mousetrap" on a visit to London some years ago but this, I believe, is a much more wonderful plot, one of Agatha Christie's best, fast moving and sometimes quite amusing. I have seen the stage version on PBS, with a wonderful leading character, Clarissa, who, despite her honest face and polished diction, claims no one ever believes her. She has male visitors who are (mostly) quick on the uptake, coming up with all sorts of responses when the police show up. Then there is the precocious school girl and the gardener who pop into the drawing room every so often to push the plot along like a rocky wheelbarrow. Not to be missed.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mom likes to say something about Agatha Christie: she's always good, and sometimes she's great. To be perfectly frank, I think Christie did so much for the mystery genre that she made it difficult for herself to outshine some of her own works. Maybe this story deserves five stars, and I'm being too harsh on it. After all, it's good. Really good. But part of me can't help but ask, Is it as good as Death on the Nile? Is it as good as good as the Orient Express Murder? So I don't completely agree with my mom. Christie is always good, often great, and sometimes spectacular. You'll have a great time reading this short story, as you will so much of her work.

[AngryGreyCat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Spider’s Web, the play by Agatha Christie because I had tickets to go see it performed at Princeton University. The play was funny, lots of humor, and light-hearted for a murder mystery. The female lead, Clarissa, was a great character, engaging and making the reader root for her success in all of her machinations. The plot did not feel as complex as some of Christie’s other work and it is my understanding that this play was overshadowed by The Mousetrap and is Christie’s least performed work. I did enjoy reading it and seeing it performed.

[Ahmed Atef · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agatha Cristie, with her astonishing style, absolutely drove my mind away, with her suspense at the closing of every chapter, she got me thrilled throughout the play. Unfortunately, at some sentences and scenarios, they felt like obvious and not really unpredictable, it was like 15% of the play, not much to be mentioned. As it turns out, the chosen characters were just in place for all the play, they said what reflected their personality and was the best thing about the play i mostly enjoyed. God bless your soul, Cristie.

[Luigi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un romanzo ben costruito, in perfetto stile Agatha Christie, con una trama che intreccia mistero, inganno e astuzia. La narrazione è fluida e coinvolgente, e i personaggi, come sempre, sono ben caratterizzati. Christie gioca con il lettore, mantenendo alta la tensione fino all’inaspettato colpo di scena finale. Anche se il ritmo può risultare un po’ più lento rispetto ad altri suoi lavori, il libro offre comunque un’esperienza di lettura avvincente e appagante. Un classico che non delude, ma che non raggiunge le vette dei suoi romanzi più celebri.

[Lucía Cherri · Rating 4 out of 5]

—Ay, Henry —replicó ella, colocando las sillas—, ha sido una tarde de lo más emocionante. Verás, poco después de que te marcharas vine al salón con los canapés, y lo primero que hago es tropezar con un cadáver.

Lo único que tengo para reprochar es que haya sido una historia tan corta, porque fue muy entretenida hasta el último momento, como todas las obras de Agatha Christie.

[Janka Juhasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

i want to direct a play based on this book. i literally read it in one sitting, it took me 1,5 hours and my thoughts were twisting around so much and it obviously threw me off at the end but the thing i could think about mostly was how my play will come to life and that i’ll perform Clarisse and it’ll be the grwatest thing this world have ever seen
(i have nothing to do with theatre by any means)

[Kellyn Toomre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love any and all Agatha Christie books. A stage play? I had no idea. To me, this was an audiobook. The typical British man narrates it and I ate it up like I do. My girl Christie knows a plot twist and I love her for it.

I love the main character and her little games and I love that her husband presumably is infatuated with her and he's like "you're my little spider" and she's like "spiders kill their husband yk" and he's like "yeah babe"

[Jody · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook with no mention of it being a play—not sure if it was a novelization purely made for the audio version or not. (Although it does explain why I kept thinking it would be easy to stage.) As far as Christie’s go, this one was just all right. Very slight but enjoyable all the same.

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Divertentissima commedia gialla in tre atti. Tutto ruota attorno a un cadavere e ai tentativi maldestri per occultarlo in modo da proteggere chi si crede che l’abbia ucciso. Ma qualcuno chiama la polizia e con l’arrivo degli agenti le cose si complicano.
Mi sono divertita tanto a leggere questa commedia, per me, se non una delle migliori opere della Christie, sicuramente la più spassosa.

[Mike Kimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a wonderful play that I just recently discovered. I was fortunate to be cast in the role of Elgin, the butler. Through working and rehearsing the script as an actor, I've had an opportunity to delve into this marvelous piece in depth. Agatha Christie had a brilliant mind, and this stage play is a fine example of the intelligence and creativity she brings to her work.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars.

I read the novel adaptation of the play and thought of how charming it would be to see it performed. The characters are great and I was back and forth on the murderer. Great job, Christie!