Preview: And Then There Were None

Agatha Christie took the murder mystery to breathtaking heights, and a compelling murder on the page can be even more effective on the stage. I was drawn to the idea of making a show that would make people grapple with the Dame’s elegant puzzles, and I’m looking forward to hearing theories of the case during the interval.

In the best tradition of 1930s detective fiction, And Then There Were None is a ‘fair’ mystery which can be solved with only the information on stage. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being devious, leaving clues and snares for an audience trying to crack the case.

Christie never sacrificed being clear for being clever. Some of her plots are so ingeniously constructed they stand as some of the great literary achievements of the 20th century, while being written in accessible prose that zips along and makes the re-read a delight. One thing we perhaps forget is how funny some of her works are. A medically-accurate description of how exactly a man dies of cyanide poisoning (quickly and noisily, it turns out) will be followed by a wry description of a hapless policeman being hoodwinked into a dinner date with the chief suspect.

There’s also something magnetic in the doomed glamour of the decades after the Great War that Christie set her finest works in. Transatlantic ocean liners, steam trains to Constantinople, art deco wallpaper, women in evening gowns clutching ivory cigarette holders; the style of the 20s and 30s is still captivating. It was an ugly world underneath the glitz, and we do peer under that surface in And Then There Were None. But what a surface!

Poirot is not coming to solve this case. All the detection is seen entirely through the eyes of characters woefully unfit to handle the situation. The closest we come to a sleuth is Justice Wargrave (Carole Coyne), a retired judge of the High Court who tries to bring justice to an island being rapidly consumed by blood and destruction. Wargrave faces off against a motley cast of strangers.

There’s a nervous doctor battling his demons – and losing (Ollie Forrest); an eccentric South African millionaire with his own mission (Woody Franklyn); duplicitous butler Tom Rogers (Steve Anstee) bickering with his resentful wife Ethel (Rosie Peck). We have an odious playboy valuing human life less than the shine on his shoes (Paddy Court); a cold-hearted, religious bigot  (Fiona Daffern), and a superstitious general lost in the trenches of his own mind (Jack King). Finally, the unnervingly cheerful mercenary (Rory Bray) and the wickedly contemptuous secretary he appears to have fallen in love with (Roseanna Mackenzie). None of them are protected from suspicion, but who will survive and who will be acquitted too late? Above all – who is the killer?

It’s always a challenge to get a big cast in the same room together at the same time, and the winter flu wave hasn’t helped!

There have been a lot of balancing acts, keeping the mystery fair against keeping the mystery secret. We’ve needed to leave room for both the jokes and the poignancy, and stay faithful to Dame Agatha’s language without slipping into pastiche. I’ve been so fortunate to find ten talented actors who have all brought their own ideas to the table, and these ideas also had to be balanced against each other to keep a consistent tone.

I knew that directing a ten-hander period piece for my first show was going to be a big ask, and recruited two experienced ADs who would be able and willing to tell me if I needed steering away from the rocks. Kelly Q and Lisa Thomas have been invaluable throughout this entire process and I simply couldn’t have done it without them.

Clear, straightforward, baffling.