Arsenic and Old Lace

Arsenic and Old Lace turns two kindly, churchgoing sisters into methodical poisoners, and their nephew into the only man who knows. Abby and Martha Brewster consider it charity: a glass of elderberry wine, quietly doctored, spares lonely old men any more loneliness. Twelve of them now rest beneath the cellar floor.

Mortimer Brewster, a drama critic with a new engagement and a low opinion of theatre, finds a body in the window seat and learns the truth about his aunts. His brother Teddy, convinced he is Theodore Roosevelt, digs the graves in the belief that he is excavating canal locks. Then Jonathan, the brother who left long ago, arrives with a disreputable surgeon, a corpse of his own, and a face he would rather nobody recognised.

Joseph Kesselring wrote the play, which first reached the stage in 1941 and ran for more than three years. Revivals have followed in the decades since, and it has become a fixture of professional, repertory and amateur programming. Its standing rests on construction: a farce engine built to run without a wasted line.

The comedy is black and played straight. Murder is discussed over tea, bodies are shuffled between the window seat and the cellar, and the pressure comes from timing rather than menace. Doors open at the wrong moment, the police call at the worst one, and every attempt to contain the situation only enlarges it.

It suits audiences who enjoy classic farce delivered deadpan, ensemble timing, and a household in which everyone is convinced they are the reasonable one. The laughter is cumulative, and it lands hardest in a room full of people hearing it together.