REVIEW: AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

REGENT THEATRE, CHRISTCHURCH

First published as a rather politically incorrect novel and later renamed And Then There Were None, this is Agatha Christie’s most popular novel and stage play.

On a hot August day in 1939, eight disparate people arrive on a small deserted desolate island off the Devon coast ...

And so begins another compelling Agatha Christie murder mystery ... forensically plotted, rich in period detail, and hugely entertaining ... featuring ten different murders!

The Regent Rep – the Regent Centre’s acclaimed “in-house” company – has created an atmospheric stage set with convincing costumes, furniture, and social attitudes.

Particularly successful is the creepy lighting and music, the summer storm thunder and lightning effects, and the final scene’s dark, claustrophobic, and terrifying atmosphere.

And if the pace occasionally slows and the play seems over-wordy, Agatha Christie – creator of The Mousetrap, Murder On The Orient Express, and A Murder Is Announced, continues to baffle, intrigue, and entertain.

Interestingly, for a lonely girl who never went to school, a woman whose first novel was not published until she was 36, Agatha Christie wrote over 80 crime novels and short story collections, entertaining the world with million-selling books and long-running stage plays.

And Then There Were None runs until Saturday.

Brendan McCusker