Sleuth
OPENING: November 12, 1970
CLOSING: October 13, 1973
Seen: December 1972
LOCATION: Music Box Theatre
Well Theatre Kids, we have reached a milestone, yes, but a milestone nonetheless.
My dad remembered a show when I asked him about it.
It was only few details, but he remembered. What was this early gem of a memory?
It was Anthony Shaffer’s 1970 hit play Sleuth.
To the average theater goer, Sleuth is not a play that first comes to mind when asked to recall one. It hasn’t been revived since it closed in 1973 and before researching it for this blog, not only had I never seen it but I had never even heard of it. I had seen the other popular Anthony Shaffer play Whodunnit, but that’s an entry for when this blog reaches my 2022 shows. However, Sleuth did win the 1971 Tony Award for best play.
Anthony Shaffer was the identical twin brother of playwright Peter Shaffer, known for works such as Equus and Amadeus. Both twins attended Cambridge University, where Anthony Shaffer studied law. Once can assume that this is where he got his inspiration for all his work, as his pieces were all crime and thriller stories.
Sleuth was not Anthony’s first piece. However, he recognized something in Sleuth that his other pieces just did not have. But the journey to the West End was not an easy one. Many with the keys to the castle did not understand it, as it was more comedic than a traditional murder mystery play. Famed London producer Binkie Beaumonet refused to take it on, claiming “It wouldn’t last a fortnight”. (Lewis, 2001) However, Anthony persisted, and the show opened on the West End, playing over 23,000 performances.
The audience reaction was mostly positive, but still mixed. It was similar to what audiences of La Mancha experienced – they enjoyed it, but it was so far beyond what they were used to that they just didn’t know what to do with it. This was not limited to the common theatre goer; Sir Lawrence Olivier even had mixed feelings about it. He would later go on to do the movie, so clearly he eventually made up his mind, but this change of perspective was not immediate.
Once audiences decided that Sleuth was actually something that they enjoyed, it became wicked popular on the West End. So much so that a transfer to Broadway was arranged – with leads Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter and the entire production team. It did almost as well on Broadway as it did in London and it even won Best Play at the Tony Awards in 1971.
By the time my dad saw it at the end of 1972, Quayle and Baxter had departed the production, as had their replacements. Playing the roles of Andrew and Milo at this point we Patrick Macnee and Jordan Christopher. And that is what my dad remembers – he remembers sitting in the house, waiting for the show to start, excited to see Patrick Macnee. Macnee played the role of Steed in the British TV show The Avengers – not to be confused with the Marvel franchise – from 1961 to 1969. I had no idea that my dad watched it, but apparently he was enough of an avid viewer to be quite excited to be seeing him on stage.
Does he remember the performance? No. However, this is probably for the better. After having read the script – I can’t believe that it’s a show my dad would have enjoyed. I can see why viewers of the late sixties and early seventies would be by confused by it. And from what I have read, Macnee was brought in as a big name and for no other reason than that. Reviewer Clive Barnes, who clearly loved the original Broadway cast, went so far as to say that Macnee was phoning in the performance.
To this day, ask any hardcore Broadway play fan what the quintessential crime play is, they will say Sleuth. For the rest of us plebians, however, it is a piece of history that is worth visiting.
CAST: Replacement
ANDREW WYKE: Patrick Macnee
MILO TINDLE: Jordan Christopher
INSPECTOR DOPPLER: Stanley Rushton
DETECTIVE SERGEANT TARRANT: Robin Mayfield
POLICE CONSTABLE HIGGS: Liam McNulty
Barnes, Clive. “Stage: ‘Sleuth’ Retains It’s Suave Wit” New York Times, September 26, 1972. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1972/09/26/91349566.html?pageNumber=43
Barnes, Clive. “Stage: ‘Sleuth’ Still Fun” New York Times, October 16, 1971.
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/16/archives/stage-sleuth-still-fun.html?searchResultPosition=8
Fountain, Nigel. “Anthony Shaffer”. The Guardian, November 7, 2001. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/nov/08/guardianobituaries.nigelfountain
Grime, William and Eric Grode. “Patrick Macnee, 93, Dapper and Unflappable in “The Avengers’, Dies. New York Times, June 25, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/arts/television/patrick-macnee-star-of-the-avengers-dies-at-93.html?searchResultPosition=1
Lachman, Marvin. “The Villainous Stage: Crime Plays on Broadway and In The West End.” Jefferson: Macfarland & Company, Inc, 2014.
Lewis, Paul. “Anthony Shaffer, 75, Author of Long-Running ‘Sleuth’, Dies.” New York Times, November 12, 2001.
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/16/archives/stage-sleuth-still-fun.html?searchResultPosition=8
Tony Awards. www.tonyawards.com. Accessed January 2023.
