Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Catherine Bailey, Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, Maeve Dermody, Burn Gorman, Christopher Hatherall, Anne Maxwell Martin, Sam Neil, Miranda Richardson, Toby Stephens, Noah Taylor, Ben Deery, Jim Main, Daisy Waterstone.
The British obsession with murder owes more to the conditioning belief of understanding that order will always be restored rather than wanting to see someone get away with the act. Not for nothing is the book charts on any local high street bookshop always seen to have the latest crime novel within tidy ranks but the authors of such are seen arguably to be in the eyes of many people amongst the most interesting to read. Nobody wants to see anyone get away with murder but there is always something slightly devilish about hoping to see it attempted and in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None murder is drawn to a perfect art.
Despite its original name and subsequent re-branding for more enlightened times, And Then There Were None remains a classic of the genre and yet for television and film it has never received the loyalty it richly deserves, endings being changed, characters turned into a grotesque version of holiness than they should ever be allowed to and whilst the adaptations in themselves were watchable, they didn’t have the urgent sense of the sinister about them that they were meant to convey. Thankfully someone at the B.B.C. finally decided to show faith with the original and with fleshing out of some of the back story; the tale is restored and given its true identity as one of crime’s great thrillers.
The difference is in the filming, the long drawn out shots and the union of death but with the lonely, sea-tossed island and isolated house in which the story is set. The murder takes on an uncommon role set in splendid remoteness, a seclusion which works better than in another televised version. With this seclusion the characters become more agitated, the depth of their emotional breakdown and fear becomes more realistic and frightening and in Maeve Dermody’s portrayal of Vera Claythorne, the suspected child murderer, and Charles Dance’s Justice Wargrave, the scene is set for one of the most riveting endings to ever grace the pages of any Agatha Christie novel.
Murder is not for the weak-hearted, it needs to be seen to have restorative justice placed at the end of it for it to work, crime is not a plaything in the eyes of the armchair detective and the darkest act of humanity is not to be seen as anything other than witnessed, arguably the best televised version of Agatha Christie’s story to date.
Ian D. Hall