This is the first comprehensive study of the English crime play, presenting a survey of 250 plays performed in the London West End between 1900 and 2000. The first part is historically orientated while the second one establishes a tentative poetics of the genre. The third part presents an analysis of some 20 plays adapted from detective fiction.

Inhalt

1. The Body in the Library and the Body on Stage
2. From Victorian Melodrama to the End of the Twenties
3. From the 1930s to the End of WW II
4. From the End of WW II to 1955
5. From 1956 to the End of the Sixties
6. From Sleuth to In-Yer-Face Theatre
7. Settings and Stage Sets
8. Timing and Plot 'Construction'
9. Dramatic Characters
10. Violence, Crime and Punishment
11. Genre, Generic Development and Subgenres
12. Stage Adaptations of Agatha Christie's Detective Stories
13. Other Types of Detective Fiction Adapted for the Stage
14. Coda: The 20th-Century English Crime Play - A View from 2015
    Bibliography: The Plays
    Bibliography: Works Cited
    Index