Reviews

Reputedly the most difficult novel Agatha Christie ever had to write, And Then There Were None - originally Ten Little Ni**ers and later, Ten Little Indians,was renamed for obvious reasons. The play is Christie’s own adaptation of the story for the stage. The novel, which clearly had a very grim ending, was changed to make the finale more appealing for theatre-goers.

With the voices of Gertrude Lawrence and Coward himself infusing the action, director Jan Mahoney pays tribute to one of the twentieth century’s theatrical ‘greats”. Playwright, composer, librettist, musician, satirist, actor, director – Sir Noël Coward made his special mark on stage and screen in England and America. His plays live on as classic vignettes of the wealthy social ‘set’ of London in the 1920s and 30s.

Eighteen years later and still a riot, the annual Wharf Revue has now moved across the road to the big theatre, the Roz Packer. 

And while the founding writers and creators, Jonathan Biggins and Drew Forsythe, have gained two new cast members and a new musical director, their show has lost a touch of its old home’s intimacy.  

Rachael Beck is a great musical and dancing addition; so not surprisingly music director Andrew Worboys has upped the number and pizzazz of the songs.

Take a room full of testosterone. Pressurise it with heat, sweat, humidity, life and death decisions, a fan that doesn’t work and just the one face towel that pretty much all the men use to mop their brows. Throw in racism and rationality, and you have the makings of a tense 90 minutes. 12 Angry Men is the prototypical jury drama, written in 1954 by Reginald Rose and reworked dozens of times thereafter.