Styles: Hastings

Captain Arthur Hastings
Lieutenant George Barleigh

George: Smithy, you haven't seen any suspicious looking characters around, have you, who might be German spies?
Smith: Nein.
George: NINE? Well! The captain's got his work cut out.
- From "Blackadder Goes Forth"

The folks at ClassicMysteries.net posted a review of Styles today, including a brief podcast, detailing the relationship between Poirot and Hastings, with an emphasis on the character of Hastings. The podcast is worth a listen, and does not reveal any secrets.

So many props, so many costumes ... we are blessed to have a company of actors (saving one) for whom the mechanics of this outreach tour is familiar. Anne McEvoy has worked on three previous productions (Seven Ages of Man, Dark Lady of the Sonnets & Before the Storm) while Michael Gatto and Emily Pucell have worked on one apiece (The Brute and On the Dark Side of Twilight, respectively.)

This is the very first tour for young James Rankin, who I was lucky enough to spot last fall in Ensemble Theatre's production of Waiting for Lefty. Lisa and I were hoping to find some fresh-faced guy to play the young British officer, just home from the Front. In this first novel, Christie's Hastings is wide-eyed, a self-styled Romantic, with a sunny cluelessness. James gets this and has been running with it.