Towards Zero (1945 play)

Shortly after the publication of Agatha Christie's novel Towards Zero in 1944, Lee Shubert from the Shubert Organisation, one of America's leading theatre producers contact Christie's agents to discuss the possibility of a stage adaptation. Christie agreed to the commission and delivered a script by Dec 1944.

Lee Shubert requested some rewrites especially of the last act and (presumably because Christie was too busy to accede) engaged one Robert Harris to rewrite the desired portions.

The script was then given a tryout performance at Martha's Vineyard Playhouse from 4-8 Sep 1945. The play was apparently not well-received. Lee Shubert subsequently wrote to Christie that reviewers found "the climax came too suddenly and the final situation was not plausible to the audience". He requested that Christie rewrite the last act before the play was taken to Broadway. Presumably because Christie was preoccupied with other matters following the end of the war, she did not do so, and the play become largely forgotten in the subsequent years, especially as Christie then wrote a second stage adaptation in the 1950s (see Towards Zero (1956 play)).

The script for the 1945 play remained largely unknown until Christie researcher Julius Green tracked it down and located it in the Shubert archive in the 2010s.

Subsequent to its rediscovery the playscript is now marketed by Samuel French under the title Towards Zero (Outdoors). This refers to the fact that the act for the play is all set outdoors on the terrace at Gull's Point. By contrast, the 1956 version of the play is set in the drawing room. According to Julius Green, the outdoor setting makes sense of a watercolour drawing found in the Agatha Christie archive of an outdoor scene with "Sketch of Scene – Towards Zero" written on the back. Prior to the rediscovery of the script, this watercolour was puzzling because it did not match the scene in the better known 1956 version.

2019 Norwich production

The play was performed in 2019 at The Maddermarket Theatre, Norwich, England, using the play as written by Agatha Christie in 1945 and recently "unearthed by author Julius Green." As the only prior staging using this script was in Martha's Vineyard in the US, the theatre claims this as the first performance of this version of the 1945 stage play in Europe. The play was directed by Becky Sweet.

Cast

• Becky Sweet as Lady Tressilian
• Lee Johnson as Neville Strange
• Lucinda Bray as Kay Strange
• Kiera Long as Audrey Strange
• Jen Alexander as Thomas Royde
• Carol Hunt as MacGregor
• Diane Webb as Collie
• Terry Cant as O'Donnell
• Ray Tempesta as Angus McWhirter
• Ian Shepherd as Inspector Leach
• Stephen Goldsmith as Sergeant Harvey
• Matthew Pinkerton as Dr Wilson
• Paul Ellingford as Peter De Costa