And Then There Were None (play)

And Then There Were None
Samuel French 2011 edition
Written by	Agatha Christie
Date premiered	September 20, 1943 (1943-09-20)
Place premiered	New Wimbledon Theatre, Wimbledon, London
Genre	Mystery

And Then There Were None is a 1943 play by crime writer Agatha Christie. The play, like the 1939 book on which it is based, was originally titled and performed in the UK as Ten Little Niggers. It was also performed under the name Ten Little Indians.

Christie had been pleased with the book, stating in her autobiography "I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I made of it." The book was very well received upon publication and soon after Christie received a request from Reginald Simpson to be allowed to dramatise it. Christie refused as she relished the challenge herself although she was intermittently some two years in carrying out the task. She knew the ending would have to be changed as all of the characters die in the book and therefore "I must make two of the characters innocent, to be reunited at the end and come safe out of the ordeal." The original nursery rhyme on which the book was based had an alternative ending of ...

... which allowed Christie to portray a different conclusion on stage.

After the play had been written, most people she discussed it with considered it impossible to produce. She received some encouragement from Charles Cochrane but he was unable to find financial backers. Finally, Bertie Mayer who had produced the 1928 play Alibi agreed to stage it.

After a try-out at the Wimbledon Theatre starting on 20 September 1943, the play opened in the West End at the St James's Theatre on 17 November. It gained good reviews and ran for 260 performances until 24 February 1944 when the theatre was bombed. It then transferred to the Cambridge Theatre opening on 29 February and running at that venue until 6 May. It then transferred back to the restored St James' on 9 May and finally closed on 1 July.

Although she did not feel it to be her best play, Christie did declare it was her best piece of "craftsmanship". She also considered it to be the play which formally started her career as a playwright, despite the success of Black Coffee in 1930.

The scene of the play is the living-room of the house on Indian Island (Note: Nigger Island in the 1943 UK production), off the coast of Devon. The time – the present.