"Huge appetite" for Agatha Christie as classic heads for the Eastbourne stage

So says Joe McFadden who joins Sophie Ward and Susie Blake in the cast of the brand-new production of Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation of The Mirror Crack’d which comes to Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre from September 8-17.

It’s Joe’s first big tour since the pandemic: “I was touring Priscilla when we got closed down in the March and it's just nice to get back on the road and back to feeling some kind of normality again. I think people are very keen to go out. I have been to the theatre in London, in the West End and it feels like people are really, really keen to be back out there seeing shows. There is a great yearning for storytelling and there always will be.

“Rehearsals have gone really well for this. That's my favourite bit of the whole thing, just being in the rehearsal room and discussing how we're going to make sure that we are all telling the same story, and our director Philip Franks is just brilliant at making it work. There is so much in there. It's a really interesting piece. Of course it's a thriller and it's a mystery but there are some really interesting characters too.”

In 1960s England, a wind of change is blowing through the land. It has even reached the sleepy village of St Mary Mead. There’s a new housing estate and a rich American film star has bought the manor house.

Jane Marple, confined after an accident, is wondering if life has passed her by. But a shocking murder occurs, and Miss Marple must unravel a web of lies, danger and tragedy.

“I'm familiar with the genre. I was brought up watching Miss Marple and the Poirots and I know how intricate the whole thing is. But this one is particularly interesting. It's one of the last novels that she wrote and it's about that sense of change.

“My character is married to a movie star and they come to live in this big hall but you realise that they are trying to get away from their past. Miss Marple is very suspicious of them.

“This one has been made into a film and it has also been done on TV but this is very different to that. It’s a brilliant adaptation and we're really delving into who the characters are. Sophie Ward is brilliant and Susie Blake is a fantastic Miss Marple.”

And as Joe says, it comes with the added attraction of simply being back on stage: “The lockdowns had their frustrations but I suppose it just was like it is for a lot of actors and was good training. You spend so much of your life with things out of your control.

"You sit around for weeks and weeks waiting for the next thing to come along so you get quite good at just keeping yourself busy and catching up with your reading and resting so no, I didn't suffer as much as a lot of people did. You just had to keep hoping and keeping busy so it's really great to be able to catch up now.”