Next year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of the ‘Queen of Crime’, Agatha Christie, and the 10th anniversary of the Agatha Christie Theatre Company. To mark both occasions, her most popular and best-selling thriller AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, is set to return to the stage for a UK tour.
West End and TV star PAUL NICHOLAS (Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Just Good Friends) will play judge Sir Lawrence Wargrave. He will be joined by COLIN BUCHANAN (Dalziel and Pascoe, Dangerous Corner) who will take on the role of retired police inspector William Henry Blore with SUSAN PENHALIGON (Bouquet of Barbed Wire, A Fine Romance), as eccentric spinster Emily Brent, MARK CURRY (Blue Peter, The Woman in Black, Charley’s Aunt) as Dr. Armstrong, VERITY RUSHWORTH (Emmerdale) as Vera Claythorne, FRAZER HINES (Doctor Who, Emmerdale) as Rogers and BEN NEALON (Soldier Soldier, Doctors) as Philip Lombard.
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE is the world’s best-selling mystery ever, with 100 million sales to date. Widely considered to be Christie’s masterpiece, her own stage adaptation of this dark and captivating tale will thrill and enthral, as murder unfolds…
A group of 10 strangers is lured to a remote island off the coast of Devon. Upon arrival it is discovered that their host, an eccentric millionaire, is missing. At dinner a recorded message is played accusing each of them in turn of having a guilty secret and by the end of the evening the 10 guests become nine. Stranded on the island by a torrential storm and haunted by an ancient nursery rhyme, one by one the guests begin to die. And with only the fallen believed to be innocent who amongst them is the killer?
Paul Nicholas is best known as Vince Pinner in the 80s BBC sitcom Just Good Friends and other series, but his biggest success has been his musical theatre career. He first made his name in the original London production of Jesus Christ Superstar, in which he played the title role. He also starred in Hair where he worked with Elaine Paige and the pair went on to play Danny and Sandy in the West End production of Grease, the first British couple to do so. In 1997, he teamed up with Bill Kenwright to co-produce a new musical based on Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale Of Two Cities, in which he starred as Sidney Carton. In recent years he produced and directed a UK tour of Keeler, based on the Profumo Affair and in February 2013 starred in Dear World at the Charing Cross Theatre.
Colin Buchanan, best known for playing D.I Pascoe for eleven years in the hit BBC television series Dalziel and Pascoe, joins the cast off the back of starring in a UK tour of another Bill Kenwright production, J.B Priestley’s Dangerous Corner.
Susan Penhaligon is probably best known for starring in the 1976 ITV drama Bouquet Of Barbed Wire and for playing Judi Dench's sister in the 1981 LWT sitcom A Fine Romance. Her West End theatre credits include The Three Sisters (Albery Theatre) Of Mice and Men (Mermaid) The Maintenance Man (Comedy Theatre) Mr Love (Comedy Theatre) The Real Thing (Strand Theatre) and Dangerous Corner (Whitehall Theatre). She has also appeared on TV many times in dramas such as Upstairs Downstairs, Tales of the Unexpected, Bergerac, Casualty and Touch of Frost.
Mark Curry is best known to children of the Eighties as one of the Blue Peter presenters as well as hosting Get Set for Summer, The Saturday Picture Show and Screen Test. His acting credits include Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone, London’s Burning, and West End shows The Woman in Black, Talent and he toured with Noises Off and Singin’ In The Rain.
Verity Rushworth is best known for her role as Donna Windsor-Dingle in the long-running ITV soap Emmerdale which she landed in 1998 when she was just 12 years old. After ten years in the role, her final scenes were aired in January 2009. The next month she made her West End debut in the musical Hairspray in the role of Penny Pingleton which she played until March 2010. In January 2011, she played Maria Von Trapp in the UK tour of The Sound of Music, taking over the role from Connie Fisher. In January 2014, she announced she would be returning to Emmerdale to reprise her role of Donna Windsor-Dingle and returned on screen in March. She stayed for five months before departing in August.
Frazer Hines is well known to Doctor Who fans for his role as Jamie McCrimmon, companion to the second Doctor Patrick Troughton. But his biggest TV role was as Joe Sugden in ITV soap Emmerdale which he played for 22 years from the pilot episode in 1972. Frazer’s theatre experience includes starring roles in Outside Edge, Dial ‘M’ for Murder, Spider’s Web, Not Now Darling, Doctor in the House, opposite Bill Kenwright, Run for your Wife, Wait Until Dark and Far From the Madding Crowd. He has also appeared in repertory at the Grand Theatre, Swansea, playing ‘Doctor Prentice’ in What the Butler Saw.
Ben Nealon is best known for his role as 2nd Lt/Lt/Capt Jeremy Forsythe in the ITV award winning series Solider Solider. His previous work for Bill Kenwright includes The Signal Man (Windsor) and the Passport For Pimlico tour. His TV credits include Casualty, The Bill, EastEnders and Doctors, and film roles include the Bollywood blockbusters The Rising and the Oscar-nominated Lagaan.
As The Agatha Christie Theatre Company marks its 10th anniversary with this production of And Then There Were None, the interest and adoration for the great Dame Christie - who having sold over two billion books worldwide is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare - continues to grow.
This production of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE is produced by Bill Kenwright, with Joe Harmston directing, design by Simon Scullion, lighting by Douglas Kuhrt and sound by Matt Bugg.
