Agatha Christie is a timeless story-teller, weaving intriguing stories about complex characters with dark secrets. With some 66 crime novels, 150 short stories and over 25 plays, she is regarded as the Queen of Crime. Director Robyn Nevin AO has bought And Then There Were None to life with style and humour.
The play is set in the living room of a guest house on Soldier Island, off the cast of Devon, England. The set is based on modernist architect Richard Neutra‘s Lovell Health House, with expansive windows overlooking the sea. The owner is a mysterious U N Owen, who has invited several people for a short holiday in August. Husband and wife team of Rogers (Grant Piro) and Mrs Rogers (Christen O’Leary) are trying to set up the house for the impending guests. The boatman has bought supplies and quips that the place looks bare, but rich folks like places bare, it seems.
The first guests to arrive are Mrs Owen’s secretary, Vera Claythorne (Mia Morrissey) and womaniser Philip Lombard (Tom Stokes). Lombard immediately plies his charms upon Vera. Rogers explains that Mr and Mrs Owen were delayed and won’t be arriving until the next day. Meanwhile, a second boatload of guests arrive. Marston (Jack Bannister) and Blore (Peter O’Brien) are both loud and brash. General McKenzie (Nicholas Hammond) is rather old and doddery while spinster Emily Brent (Jennifer Flowers) is a prim and proper religious zealot. Sir Lawrence Wargrave (Anthony Phelan) is a retired judge while Eden Falk plays Dr Armstrong.
There are ten toy soldiers on the table and a copy of a nursery rhyme over the fire place. Vera starts to read, “Ten little soldier boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine…” Suddenly a disembodied voice starts and accuses each of them in turn of the deaths of another. In the confusion, each of them relay how they were invited to the island by U N Owen .. an unknown.
Marston starts choking after drinking his whiskey then promptly falls and dies. The collected party suddenly realise that they are cut off from the mainland and that perhaps they are all going to die according to the nursery rhyme. The weather turns nasty, which means not even the morning boat is expected. The curtain falls on Act 1 and we are left with a deliciously perplexing whodunnit.
Between Dale Ferguson‘s set and costume design and Trudy Dalgleish‘s Lighting design, we follow the increasingly nervous guests as one by one they die according to the rhyme. There are even red herrings thrown in for good measure. It is the true skill of Ms Christie that she can keep us guessing until the very end. None of the guests are particularly likeable and they all harbour a secret or two. The overall feel is that of a quaint English middle class mystery. It would serve no useful purpose to divulge any more of the plot, suffice to say that the prediction of the rhyme rings true as the guests die one by one.
The cast and crew have done an admirable job in bringing the story to life in a droll yet respectable way. Laughs abound despite the morbid story-line. Could it be that we enjoy people who have escaped the long arm of the law getting their just deserts? Despite the complicated plot, the story flows easily and is very satisfying.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Agatha Christie’s breathtaking masterpiece, And Then There Were None plays at Her Majesty’s Theatre until 16th August.
The reviewer attended on 3rd August.
Tickets and more information on the website
Header image credit: Jeff Busby
