Vertigo Theatre’s newest offering inspired by Agatha Christie favourites

Vertigo Theatre’s Peril in the Alps is a new story based on time-honoured Agatha Christie characters that takes beloved Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings on a trip up the mountain, and then down again in search of a missing woman.

It is a sequel to the Poirot mystery Vertigo presented last year, Murder on the Links and even features several returning players in Heidi Demayo and Graham Percy, although they take on new roles — many of them.

The show has just six actors, over 30 characters, and nearly as many accents. Part of the fun of the show is watching the carefully choreographed frenzy as the actors move from one role to another.

Linda Kee plays woman one in the playbill. But within the show she plays a multitude of characters, and has to recreate at least four main accents with variations.

“There’s different regional dialects, in England or even Swiss. So mainly I do a French, I have a quick character that is based for me personally, kind of in a Russian, they call it a European cosmopolitan,” she says.

The dialect coach for the show is Betty Moulton, a celebrated theatre professional with over 40 years experience who specializes in voice teaching and coaching. 

Each actor was given several sessions with Moulton who emphasized that the differences go beyond what is happening in the mouth. Kee says even from the way each character breathes there are differences.

“So you’re really preparing yourself in advance, and it’s funny because the show, you’re moving so quickly,” she says.

She says switching her physical posture between each character has become a mental clue to change her breathing, and her accent, “…and when you’re walking these different characters, you are using different muscles.”

Peril in the Alps runs at Vertigo Theatre through to Dec. 14.

Ticket information can be found here.