Good pals star in rare Poirot play in Coventry

Good pals star in rare Poirot play in Coventry

Postby dutchman » Tue Apr 29, 2014 7:21 pm

Liza Goddard and Robert Powell star in Agatha Christie's Black Coffee, coming to the Belgrade Theatre

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“We have been friends for 42 years,” says actress Liza Goddard of her Black Coffee co-star, Robert Powell.

The versatile actor who portrayed the son of God in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 TV film Jesus of Nazareth, is Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s Black Coffee.

Liza, aged 64, plays Miss Caroline Amory, the sister of an eccentric inventor Sir Claud Amory, whose murder throws a quintessential English country estate into chaos.

“Robert is brilliant as Poirot,” she continues. “We have done a couple of plays and work well together. We are part of a group of friends. Caroline is a delightful, dotty Edwardian woman who never married. She stayed at home to look after her brother and the house.”

Black Coffee is Agatha Christie’s first ever play and the only one to ever feature the diminutive French detective.

Liza adds: “People are surprised at just how funny it is. She was obviously a very funny woman and treats the audience with great respect.

“It has not really been done before. For Agatha Christie affectionados it’s a real collector’s item.

“I’m looking forward to being back in the Midlands.”

“I grew up in Surrey but my mother’s family are all from the West Midlands. I still have a cousin in the Black Country and my sister lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. When I am in Coventry we’re going to see Henry IV part I at the RSC.”

The glamorous grandmother-of-three has been acting for five decades. She received her break in children’s TV show Skippy the Bush Kangaroo aged 15 – as Clancy Merrick, the teenage daughter of a park ranger.

When Liza’s father got a new job with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the family emigrated to Australia. “My sister and I didn’t want to go and we had to go by ship, which took six weeks.

“We went to living in the countryside with ponies to living by the sea in Sydney but we took to the beach life and loved surfing and swimming.”

She returned to the UK in 1969 and starred in Take Three Girls with Susan Jameson and Angela Down. Her other TV roles include Bergerac, Doctor Who, Woof! Bernard’s Watch, Brendon Chase, Out of Sight and more recently as Lady Prigsbottom in CBeebies hit Grandpa in My Pocket.

“I love Grandpa in My Pocket. It is such fun working with James (Bolam) again and it’s one of the most popular programmes on CBeebies.”

Liza, who recovered from breast cancer in 1997, lives in Norfolk with her third husband – the nature-film director David Cobham – and a menagerie of rescued animals.

She said: “These days we just have three dogs, chickens and a pony.

“David has a new book coming out. A Sparrowhawk’s Lament: How British Breeding Birds of Prey Are Faring. It took him five years. Norfolk is wonderful for bird-watching.”

* Black Coffee directed by Joe Harmston, associate director of the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, runs on the Main Stage at the theatre from May 6 until May 10. Ring the box Office on 024 7655 3055 or go to http://www.belgrade.co.uk/event/black-coffee

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