2015 Agatha Christie Festival: Day 6 - Greenway and The Hollow

Creme and Chatiments, Greenway

Day 6 (17/09/2015)

Today we headed back over to Greenway for a Creme et Chatiments Cooking demonstration (Cream and Punishment). Anne Martinetti hosted the event - she has published a recipe book with over 80 recipes based on the dishes mentioned in Agatha Christie's books - and today and we got to try a few.

We started off with some cucumber and horse radish sandwiches - which were very strong tasting - ideal for disguising the taste of poison! We also tried some plum cake and apple cake - finally ending with Delicious Death, the cake that was in Murder is Announced. It was very tasty, and was served with Devonshire Clotted Cream - one of Agatha Christie's favourite foods. Apparently, she used to drink pints of cream!!

The recipe book hasn't been translated into English - I had a quick flick through, and although I could read the ingredients, I couldn't understand the method! So, we'll have to give that one a miss.

The Boathouse

After the talk, we decided to go for a walk round Greenway gardens. What a beautiful place, I can see why Agatha Christie called it "the loveliest place in the world". The sun came out and it turned out to be a lovely warm day. We strolled down to the Boathouse - where Marlene Tucker was found murdered in Dead Man's Folly. We also found the sturdy table. This one had a lovely view of the River Dart.

There was lots of information there - including information about the filming of Dead Man's Folly with David Suchet. I thought it had mainly been filmed at Greenway, however, very little was filmed there. There were photos showing how the house changed from a two-storey to a three-story house, there was an extra garden on the back - and lots more!

Afterwards, we walked to the Battery and looked out over the River Dart - this is where Poirot and Ariadne Oliver met in Dead Man's Folly. What a peaceful place.

We then made our way back up through the gardens and bought a few things at the National Trust shop and headed back to Torquay.

Grand Hotel

We decided to go to the Grand Hotel, to have a cup of tea and find the sturdy table. The table was in the beautiful Art Deco Library. The hotel also did a number of Agatha Christie themed cocktails, unfortunately I was driving so didn't get chance to try one.

In the evening, we went to see The Hollow at the Palace Theatre in Paignton. The theatre version of the play does not include Hercule Poirot - Christie did not like to see her characters played out on the stage and wrote Hercule out of her plays. The production was good - a lot of the actors were the ones who were in The Unexpected Guest last year. The story was great, as you'd expect and there were only slight changes from the book - mainly the location of the action and murder. It was all based in the Angatell's drawing room.

All in all, another good day. Tomorrow we've not got as much planned - we're having a quieter day, but we are heading out to the Dark Night at the Abbey.

In the meantime, here are a few more photos from today...

The Boathouse

Greenway

Art Deco Library, The Grand Hotel