Somewhere off the coast of Devon is a dreary little island with high cliffs, higher tides and no way to escape. It’s Soldier Island: a lovely place to put your feet up, take a dip, meet nine strangers and watch as you all get slowly picked off one by one.
This is the wickedly thrilling premise of Agatha Christie’s 1939 classic And Then There Were None. A favourite among Christie fans (and Christie herself), it arrives at the Comedy Theatre in a production that once again proves that the master of the whodunnit can still thrill us nearly 100 years on. Yet this revival from director Robyn Nevin – her second of Christie’s following 2023’s The Mousetrap – rests on the laurels of its author too often, offering a passable but ultimately thin restaging that I think signals the end of the recent resurgence of British classics in our theatres.
It’s 1939. Ten people have been invited to Soldier Island under suspicious pretences. They have little in common apart from the skeletons in their closets. For much of the show’s bloated first act we’re watching this motley crew of potential victims introduce themselves to each other. Christie is famous for her ability to construct a complete impression of a person in one short phrase. But here, these characters have a tendency to over explain themselves, and it can get a bit tedious. You can feel Nevin trying to amplify comedic beats or attempt more creative blocking to avoid this exposition-heavy first half from getting too stale. For this, she has an incredibly talented cast at her disposal.
As the ex-soldier Philip Lombard, Tom Stokes keeps things moving with witty jabs and arrogant take downs that strike the perfect balance between Hugh Grant-style arrogance and charisma. His sparring matches with the entitled Cambridge student Anthony Marston (Jack Bannister) and condescending love for the dowdy cop William Blore (Peter O’Brien) inject a much-needed liveliness to these on-stage relationships. Eden Falk is perfect as the authoritative Dr. Armstrong; and Grant Piro is suitably frenetic as the panicked servant, Rogers. Meanwhile, Jennifer Flowers lends a much-needed gravitas to the crocheting traditionalist, Emily Brent. Watching her butt heads with the strong-willed Vera Claythorne (Mia Morrissey) over ideas of feminine modesty stands out as one of those breathtaking moments when you feel an audience suddenly in awe of Christie’s enduring relevance.
But while her humour comes easily to this cast, the deeper themes that elevate her novel are given short shrift. This is one of Christie’s most psychological thrillers. We’re watching people unravel at the hands of their guilt and fallibility, as much as the threat of their demise. Without Miss Marple or Detective Poirot, our investigation is weighted with a near-existential hopelessness. Nicholas Hammond doesn’t quite land the tragedy of the absent-minded General Mackenzie, Anthony Phelan seems more comfortable performing Sir Lawrence Wargrave’s stoicism than his anger, and Morrissey doesn’t have enough of a handle on the complex twists and turns in Vera’s mental state.
Set and costume designer Dale Ferguson situates us in the play’s interwar context beautifully by dressing the cast in a well-chosen mix of high-waisted pants, three-piece suits and silk blazers. Their navy blues, beiges and egg-shell whites are brought out by Trudy Dalgleish’s preference for bright white washes and sunny tones in her lighting design. But I wish more was done to amplify the horrors of the show’s final act. Occasional glimpses of severe lighting, and ominous shadows are ultimately too tepid to contribute much to any overall atmosphere, leaving us with an emotional climax that feels frustratingly stale.
Reviewing an Agatha Christie play can sometimes feel like you’re critiquing a Christmas classic. This is hallowed ground, and familiar to many. Some might call it unfair to expect so much. It’s a museum piece; a time capsule that should be evaluated as an intriguing glimpse into our past. In recent years, this idea has become the bankable logic that has driven many of the revivals seen in Melbourne’s larger venues. Nevin’s production of The Mousetrap is one example. But 2024 also saw revivals of A Woman in Black, Gaslight and the annual A Christmas Carol carve out a little West End corner in our city.
Economically, this trend makes sense. These aren’t spectacle-heavy productions that require big budgets, and they still have enough cultural clout to ensure good ticket sales. Producers of plays don’t have a pool of jukebox musicals or film adaptations to choose from like their musical counterparts. If they want to bring a play to one of our larger venues, it seems they have two options: an Arthur Miller revival or a classic British thriller.
With this production of And Then There Were None you can feel this trend nearing its end. It’s not that we expect modern takes of these slices of theatrical history. But we can tell when fidelity is used as a crouch to avoid doing more with them. Reverence doesn’t need to be an excuse for laziness. This is Christie’s best novel, but for all its thrilling twists and still enlivening themes, you won’t come out of this show thinking it’s her best play. I came out of it feeling nothing but the sense that an opportunity to do something more with it had ultimately been wasted.
And There There Were None is playing at the Comedy Theatre until March 23. Find out more and get tickets here.
