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Review of

Agatha Christie's
"And Then There were None"

Haxby Players Play to full Houses

Cut off from the mainland; a group, gathered by invites from an unknown hand, an ethereal voice accusing each of causing at least one death. So begins this Agatha Christie play with a new PC correct title. But will justice be done?

The Sangers' functional set gives a canvas on which Robin Sanger uses the actors to paint his image of a '30's House Party. The brightest, the young blade played by Lee Harris soon meets his scarlet faced, very convincing end via a cyanide spiked Scotch.

Mrs Rodgers (Brenda Riley) perfect as the precise housekeeper with snooded hair and well rounded West Country vowels, supposedly died in her sleep.
The wonderful Peter Major playing the General, clear and crisp in his enunciation; convincing in the wandering of his mind fell asleep on the veranda with the help of an unseen knife in the back.
The Poem on the mantelpiece was being ominously followed and the porcelain soldiers morbidly reduced, one for each death.
We realised that the Butler, reminiscent of an aging Peter Sellers, wickedly played by Andy Love, hadn't done it, when he was axed ... in the back of the head.

Geraldine Jevons painstakingly assembled the part of dried spinster Emily Brent and wore it as a glove. She lived by the 'good book' but found no forgiveness of sins in it. With her usual impeccable timing she died at the end of a row.
By now the suspense was rising and each scene change brought eager discussion in the audience as to 'who done it'.
Electricity failure and the clinically thought out lighting effects were well enacted by Geoff Taylor in his rarely seen role with the lights and sound.

The Judge, who had been accused of sending an innocent man to his death, precisely played by Dave Hudson, was found dead exactly as the poem had foretold.
The meticulous brown suited Doctor (Malcolm Law) disappeared apparently over the cliffs, but was he in hiding? A search revealed nobody.

Ron Jevons played the role of a Police Officer masquerading as a South African with the accent on confusing. He had been accused of perjury leading to the death of an innocent man and was the next to go. And then there were two.

The daredevil Captain Lombard now spreading into middle age; Austin Barnett portrayed him to a T and the secretary, lean hungry and determined to get her man (Sheila Barnett). Both claimed they were innocent but assumed the other guilty. So she got her man with a Walther PP9.

But just as I was expecting the yellow clad boat woman chirpily played by Moira Hogg to appear and be the mass murderer, in a final twist the Judge entered with a noose to end the suspense. Faking his death he explained that Shipmanlike he enjoyed killing, but that he, in the name of justice had the grace to find guilty victims and she would be next. But in the final twist, the Captain rises from the battlefield guns down the Judge and the future looks good for the two innocents.

So has justice been done? I think so. The guilty perished, Haxby produced a full house and the Players did justice to Agatha Christie.

Review by Peter Bridgewood.

Cast of "And then there were none"

Peter Major, Andy Love, Dave Hudson, Austin Barnett, Ron Jevons, Malcolm Law.

Moira Hogg, Geraldine Jevons, Sheila Barnett, Brenda Riley, Lee Harris