Go Back for Murder is one of Agatha Christie’s more unusual whodunits. First, because the play opens with the assumption that the murderer has been found and, second, because there is more pathos here than in your usual Christie tale.

The pathos comes from the central character of Carla Crale (Jenny Ross). Shortly after her 21st birthday, she learns the unseemly ‘truth’ about her mother. It seems, instead of dying in an accident, her mother Caroline died in prison. Caroline was convicted of killing her husband, and Carla’s father. Carla enlists the help of a solicitor, Justin Fogg (Joe Robertson), to clear her mother’s name. Between them, they locate the last people to see Carla’s father alive, with a view to finally learning the truth.

The story is unusually affecting for a Christie tale, owing to the plot’s backdrop of mourning and possible parental injustice. And because lines are delivered with polite, clipped and slightly repressed English middle-class tones, it’s even more heartbreaking. Interestingly, the story is based on the novel Five Little Pigs; adapting it for the stage, Christie cut her stalwart sleuth, Poirot. Although the solicitor character Fogg has been written in such a way to take the investigatory baton on from the now missing Belgian, it’s barely noticeable.

Unfortunately, the production seems drab and stilted. The decision of director Robert Holton to split the stage in sections for each part of the action might have suited a bigger performance area, but for the cramped OFS Studio, it’s seriously ill-conceived. To add insult to injury, he makes no use of the small space left either, and proceedings are cripplingly static. The actors tend to be stuck sitting on chairs for most of the play. This is not a radio play, this is theatre.

It’s a shame, as this is a lesser performed play by the Queen of Crime. I’d probably read the novel instead if I were you. The show runs until Saturday night.