And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None

At Her Majesty’s Theatre

Until August 16

Agatha Christie wrote this play in 1943 and titled it 10 Little Niggers, the title of her novel of 1939 and named after a well-known ditty, 10 Little Nigger Boys. It was a popular children’s rhyme and featured in vaudeville and black and white minstrel shows of the era.

My family must have taken me to a Black and White Minstrel Show at Her Majesty’s, then part of the JC Williamson’s national circuit of theatres, when I was a child. I loved the show, my first exposure to professional theatre I can recall.

Even in 1943 there must have been some concern about the title. It was moderated to 10 Little Indians before it opened. And Then There Were None, the last line in the ditty, is a better title in any case. In this production the rhyme is delivered as 10 Little Soldiers, and that’s enough for anyone to know what’s about to happen.

Her Majesty’s has been rebuilt at least twice since my early visit. And sensibilities have moved along, too. But Agatha Christie plots, despite their unapologetic British upper class 1930s settings, have become timeless.

The book and the film had more room to luxuriate in the island setting, a mile off the south coast of England, with its newly-built manorial home, rugged coast, and daily deliveries of sustenance by boat from the mainland.

There, a group of seven guests, a private secretary and a butler and cook have been assembled, it turns out anonymously, by their absent host, U.N. Owen, who, they realise, could be read as “unknown”. It is an early clue to their predicament; and a hint as to how deeply we should take this particular night at the theatre.

Director Robyn Nevin has to deal with the problem of establishing 10 characters – played by a crowd of 10 performers – who are pawns in a weird, mechanistic murder plot rather than innately drivers of events. Each needs to be wholly distinctive and memorable. After all, some of them will only strut very briefly on stage.

Dale Ferguson’s set and costume designs help, the men dressed variously casual and uniformly formal, and the secretary, Vera Claythorne (played by Mia Morrissey), in spectacular fashion outfits. The set is a salon with a modernist glass and steel outlook that allows the sky and weather in as part and parcel of the drama.

You could ask for more vocal coaching in British upper lips, or simply assume that most characters are upwardly mobile grifters. Those 1930s rulers of empire usually had affected voices that would reach the back of the hall, but some of these conversations remain a mystery, especially those upstage and outside the salon.

Helpfully, there is a merry go round of introductions as the guests arrive and we discover they don’t know each other. There is an old dear in the Mrs Marples style, the glamorous secretary, several army chaps, a couple of brash young upstarts, a doctor and members of the judiciary and constabulary.

There is an equally diverse range of deaths. As entertaining as these may be the cast does not quite rise to the challenge of keeping a façade of credibility and concern for victims and survivors.

Fortunately the plot is busy with and engaging set of crises and the denouement is as dramatic as it has always been. The last few performers, while they are still standing – or should I say lying – are of sufficient quality to deliver the rollicking finale. I wish I could say who they were, but the conventions of Agatha Christie murder plots have to be observed, we are told.