Christie’s And Then Posts Closing Notices, 14 JanDate: 22 December 2005
Agatha Christie thriller And Then There Were None has posted closing notices at the West End’s Gielgud Theatre. The production, in a new version by Kevin Elyot, opened on 25 October 2005 (previews from 14 October) and had been booking until 26 February 2006. It will now finish on 14 January 2006, after a run of three months.
And Then There Were None (previously titled Ten Little Indians) revolves around ten strangers, with apparently nothing in common, who are lured to an exclusive island mansion by the mysterious UN Owen. Over dinner, a voice on a gramophone record accuses each guest of hiding a guilty and terrible secret. That evening, one of the party is found murdered and the tension escalates as the survivors realise the killer is not only among them, but is preparing to strike again... and again...
For this new version, directed by Chichester Festival joint artistic director Steven Pimlott, Elyot (Forty Winks, My Night with Reg) drew exclusively from the original 1939 novel rather than Christie’s own 1943 stage version or subsequent screen versions. As part of a major initiative to re-popularise Christie for the 21st century, the piece was updated with an eye to satisfying the expectations of younger audiences accustomed to more graphic horror on screen.
The ensemble cast features Graham Crowden, Tara Fitzgerald, Richard Johnson, Gemma Jones and also includes Katy Brittain, Sam Crane, Richard Clothier, Anthony Howell, John Ramm and David Ross.
Over the past five years, Chorion, which owns the rights to the Agatha Christie estate, has been successfully relaunching the author’s Marple and Poirot works in print and on television, bringing in new playwrights to reinterpret the stories for a modern audience. This new stage version of And Then There Were None is the first in a similar reassessment of Christie’s theatrical works. It follows a four-year moratorium on any stage productions – not including the ultimate stage longrunner, now in its 53rd year in the West End, The Mousetrap, which is not part of Chorion’s ownership portfolio - while the new work was developed.
No further productions have yet been announced for the Gielgud.
- by Terri Paddock
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