Butter in a Lordly Dish is the name of a half-hour radio play written by Agatha Christie and first performed on the BBC Radio Light Programme on Tuesday 13 January 1948 at 9.30pm on Mystery Playhouse presents The Detection Club. It was repeated on Friday 16 January at 4.15pm.
History
Butter in a Lordly Dish remains one of Christie's least-known works. The title comes from the Bible, at Judges, 5:25 – "He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish", where "he" refers to Sisera, "she" is Jael, and Jael kills Sisera by hammering a nail through his head. The same fate awaits Sir Luke Enderby in Christie's play at the hands of Julia Keene. Jack Malvern, of The Times called it "one of Agatha Christie’s most gruesome murder plots."
The play was one of a series of six written by members of the Detection Club to raise funds for the organisation. The other five plays and their first broadcasts (all on Tuesdays at 9.30pm) are as follows:
The Murder at Warbeck Hall by Cyril Hare, broadcast on 27 January 1948
A Nice Cup of Tea by Anthony Gilbert, broadcast on 3 February 1948
Sweet Death by Christianna Brand on 10 February 1948
Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble by E. C. R. Lorac on 17 February 1948
Where Do We Go From Here? by Dorothy L Sayers on 24 February 1948
The play received its first production since 1948 as part of the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival in 2001 at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea and has occasionally been performed since as a special event. The play was included in Murder on Air, a special production from 22 April to 3 May 2008 by the Agatha Christie Theatre Company of three of Christie's radio plays (the other two being The Yellow Iris and Personal Call) at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. It was also staged as part of the Agatha Christie’s The BBC Murders, production at the Parker Playhouse in South Florida in 2013.
Discovery
It was thought that no recording existed. However, it was found, along with two other lost plays, amid uncatalogued material by freelance audio producer Charles Norton and BBC sound archivist Sean Whyton. Recordings of the plays were released on 17 September 2015 as a CD and as a digital download entitled The Lost Plays, published by BBC Audio, part of Penguin Random House, two days after the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s birth.
Plot summary
In a boarding house off the Pimlico Road run by a Mrs. Petter, one of the guests, Julia Keene, is taking her leave after staying there for a short time. Mrs. Petter's daughter, Florrie, having seen Julia leaving a posh cocktail party in a house in Mayfair, wonders why the lady has been lodging with them. Florrie has elaborate and fanciful suspicions that Julia is involved in a gang of cat burglars and her job is to stake out the territory ahead of the other gang members. Florrie's mother scoffs at her daughter's ideas.
The talk turns to other crimes and the latest news in the papers of a trial at the Old Bailey involving a taxi driver where the jury is still out considering its verdict. Florrie is scornful of the judge's summing up but praises the reported prosecution speech by Sir Luke Enderby. He is a well-known King's Counsel who came to public attention for successfully prosecuting a man called Henry Garfield in a serial killer case known as the "Blondes on the Beach". The accused was a good-looking man who attracted women and Mrs. Petter uses this example as an excuse to tell her daughter to be careful of the men that she meets. Their conversation is interrupted by Julia who asks to use their telephone. She is left alone to make the call and she rings up a house in Chishold Gardens where she asks to speak to Sir Luke Enderby...
Hayward, the servant, tells Julia over the phone that Sir Luke is not yet back from the Old Bailey. After finishing the phone call, Hayward lets in a visitor to the house – Susan Warren, a society lady. Sir Luke arrives soon afterwards from the trial having won his guilty verdict. Soon afterwards his wife arrives back home after a day out at Christie's and she and Susan soon talk of the nature of juries and the verdicts they reach – particularly when there are a number of women on the jury who might be influenced by their feelings for the accused. Like Mrs. Petter and Florrie they cite the case of Garfield and the "Blondes on the Beach".