Packed with delicious surprises, this Agatha Christie mystery is great theatre

The Age

11-05-2025

But the how, the who and the why … that takes a bit more explanation. Agatha Christie's best-selling novel And Then There Were None has inspired endless variations for the page, stage and screen but the original, presented here with Christie's grim ending intact, is still packed with delicious surprises and gnawing suspense.
As director Robyn Nevin notes in an introduction, the story is rightly celebrated for its ingenious plotting, but the play is all about the characters. Each of the 10 victims has a clearly defined set of characteristics and a secret (which I won't divulge).
Thus Anthony Marston (a puppy-like Jack Bannister) is thoughtless; Dr Armstong (Eden Falk) is nervous; Captain Lombard (a dashing Tom Stokes) is heartless; and so on. The trick is to bring these stereotypes to life, without slipping into parody or predictability.
The ensemble cast achieves this in splendid style, every detail of facial expression, gesture and accent skilfully titrated, to the point that a fake accent (Peter O'Brien playing a Cockney policeman playing a South African businessman) sounds delightfully bogus.
Nicholas Hammond makes General Mackenzie a dotty grieving widower, while Anthony Phelan is the razor-sharp retired judge, Sir Lawrence Wargrave. Mia Morrissey plays a striking Vera Claythorne, the young secretary and would-be love interest, if there wasn't so much dying going on.
Christen O'Leary and Grant Piro play the long-suffering staff and Jennifer Flowers, as Emily Brent, steals many a scene with her bitter rage against the young, before quietly expiring.
It's a handsome production. Set and costume designer Dale Ferguson has created an interior inspired by the 1929 Lovell Health House, designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra. It is the antithesis of Gothic horror, all light and clean lines, bounded by open skies (which darken on cue as things get stormy).
His costumes are a treat, with hats and ties and tailored jackets, plus a stunning evening dress for ingenue Vera. The lighting (Trudy Dalgleish) is essential, not just for setting the mood but also for leading the eye and, at key moments, enabling the plot.
The sound design and underscore (Paul Charlier) also plays its part in the drama to perfection. In a media landscape overflowing with parodies and re-cuts, And Then There Were None plays it straight. It's great theatre, and you'll never guess ...
Until June 1
THEATRE
HAPPY DAYS
Wharf 1 Theatre, May 9
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★
The greatest roles allow for endless revelations. The corollary is that no Winnie in Happy Days will ever be perfect, any more than any Hamlet will be.
The role's scope is too vast. Despite playwright Samuel Beckett's best efforts to corral actors into playing her a certain way, every Winnie is wonderfully different.
Pamela Rabe's portrayal now joins that list.
Some actors lust after the chance to play Hamlet, yet I doubt many lust after Winnie. Few roles are more daunting.
Not only is there 90 minutes' worth of essentially solo (and often repetitive) text to learn, there are myriad fastidious stage directions to incorporate, and then there's being buried in a mound, first to the waist, then to the neck. It's almost as though – among the piece's many metaphorical implications – the mound is a foothill of the mountain the actor must climb.
Sydney Theatre Company's co-directors Rabe and Nick Schlieper (also the set and lighting designer) opt for a meta-theatrical interpretation in which the mound and its surroundings shout, 'This is a stage. Nothing is real.' Rabe's Winnie, meanwhile, is the most differentiated I've seen: like some grotesque attraction in an amusement park.
When Beckett, in a delirium of joy at puncturing his own metaphor, has Winnie recount the story of two passers-by who wonder why Winnie's seldom seen or heard husband, Willie, doesn't dig her out, you can just about imagine them also shying coconuts at her.
Much stage business, such as Winnie's brushing her teeth, is extended in length to amplify the visual comedy. But not only is Rabe sometimes a notably clownish Winnie, she's also a more desperate one.
Hallmarks of Winnies (in the 64 years since the play's first performance) have been resilience, improbable optimism and a winning smile. Rabe's Winnie is less resilient; closer to giving into her anguish. She's more frantic; less serene; harsher of voice and less sweet of smile – often grimacing when she tries.
She's seemingly more knowing of the direness of her predicament, so spasms of terror cross her face – in contrast to the unchanging, sun-scorched blue-grey sky that surrounds the mound.
A starker contrast comes in Act Two. After the transition to Winnie's being buried up to her neck is done in a blackout (with terrifying sounds by Stefan Gregory) rather than the usual interval, the sky is now black and Rabe's head alone is fiercely lit.
Now she's without Winnie's trademark makeup – how could she apply any? – other than smudged eyes and any hinted optimism has largely withered to horror and anguish. She's more bizarre than pitiable and yet Rabe's Winnie, even as she makes us laugh, still lances our hearts. Just less often.
Markus Hamilton quirkily plays the minor role of Willie, and for the Winnie actor, as for Winnie herself, Willie's presence must be infinitely reassuring. Ultimately, Rabe's virtuosity presents a Winnie who's intriguing, grotesque, funny, occasionally trying, almost coarse and memorably unique.
Until June 15
ANISA NANDAULA: YOU CAN'T SAY THAT
Enmore Theatre, May 9
Reviewed by DANIEL HERBORN
★★★1/2
The house is full, Sexyy Red is pumping through the speakers and there's a palpable sense of anticipation before Anisa Nandaula's show, presented as part of Sydney Comedy Festival's Fresh program showing the best emerging talent.
It's a testament to her charisma and gleeful energy that the party vibe rarely falters, with the always animated Nandaula dancing goofily around the stage, throwing herself into act-outs and raising her glasses quizzically to stress a point.
The young Ugandan-Australian has already amassed nearly 400,000 TikTok followers; her sharp observations and straight-to-the-punchline style seem tailor-made for the format.
But unlike other TikTok sensations who have made wobbly transitions to the live arena, Nandaula has put in the hours on stage. Her background in slam poetry has given her an understanding of how to use pacing and tone, and her time in the rough-and-tumble Brisbane clubs has helped her develop into a nimble crowd-working comic, here quizzing audience members on how much they earn or how many black friends they have.
Her playfulness ensures these back-and-forths flirt with being uncomfortable rather than crossing that line.
You Can't Say That also functions as an introduction to Nandaula's story, as she breezily recounts her early days in Australia, where she moved to Rockhampton and was singled out as the only African kid in her class. Then there were brushes with mental ill-health and ill-fitting jobs, among them working in a call centre for a bank or trying to help out burly tradies at Bunnings.
On this night, she was apparently having such a great time chatting that she had to wrap up in a rush. No matter; not only does this hour cement her as one of Australian comedy's most talented up-and-comers, it gives the tantalising sense she has more up her sleeve.
Until May 11. Also Comedy Store, July 12
MUSIC
MYLES SMITH
Hordern Pavilion, May 9
Reviewed by MILLIE MUROI
★★★½
Translating online presence to stage presence can be hard. But that wouldn't occur to you watching 26-year-old Myles Smith.
The British-Jamaican artist graced some open-mic nights as a kid, but he started building his fan base through social media only in 2022. Three years on, Smith's silhouette alone – even when obscured by smoke – is enough to sense his commanding presence.
In his first Australian visit, on his We Were Never Strangers Tour, Smith presented new material from a coming album while delving into his discography, including soulful hits Stargazing and Nice to Meet You from his second EP A Moment … released last year.
At times, Smith's performance felt like a huge group therapy session. 'These songs are from real stories, real parts of my life,' he said, sharing painful memories from his past that melted into slam-poetry-style delivery, then song.
Later, Smith asked everyone to hold up their phones and turn on their flashlights to indicate if they had gone through such tough experiences as depression, anxiety and heartbreak. By the end of this exercise, the room shimmered.
Smith's singing was smooth, but there was a sense that he could go further. His vocal control was solid, the runs beautifully executed and his voice rich and deep – especially in anthems such as My Home from debut album You Promised A Lifetime.
But by mustering more power, or even belting at key moments, Smith could hammer home the deeply emotional heights of his music and leave a more lasting impression. With higher risk often comes higher reward.
The show waned towards the middle, yet the second half was better-paced. His unreleased songs were upbeat and catchy, seemingly destined for earworm status.
If Smith was ever nervous during the show, it never showed. He had an energised yet calm demeanour and his small talk – while cliched at times – sounded natural. Smith's music was 'easy to get into' as one audience member remarked, driven by strong bass rhythms, soaring notes and stirring lyrics.
His band was seamless, matching his infectious, playful energy, and a piano solo in the lead-up to moving anthem River (2024) was a highlight.
With a seemingly instinctive feel for the stage, passion for mental health and evocative songwriting, Smith has plenty of potential as he takes his tour worldwide.
MUSIC
Theremin player Carolina Eyck sat upright and focused, the fingers of her right hand making precise movements like playing air cello, while the left hand rose, fell and tapped as though simultaneously conducting and playing bongos.
As she later explained, the right hand controlled pitch according to proximity to a vertical aerial while the left controlled volume through a loop. The player never touches the instrument and the resulting sound is ethereal, otherworldly and occasionally saccharine.
This electronic instrument, modernist in sound though invented in 1920 by Leon Theremin, is as old for today's audience as the piano was for Mozart's. Some Sydney listeners may recall its use by dancer Philippa Cullen, who choreographed works in the 1970s in which the dancer's movement generated music.
Yet players of Eyck's accomplishment are rare. The Australian Chamber Orchestra's collaboration with Eyck mixed theremin arrangements with works for string orchestra and a newly commissioned piece, Hovercraft, by Sydney composer Holly Harrison.
To set the mood, Brett Dean's Komarov's Last Words for string orchestra was built on vanishing slices of harmonics rising to a catastrophic climax to evoke the doomed cosmonaut's last moments. In Glinka's The Lark, Eyck demonstrated her ability to draw subtle lyrical nuance in melodies that soared above orchestra.
In Air from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3, Eyck matched her sound with the orchestral cello and, in a selection from Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals, with the double bass. Her ability to shape melody expressively again came to the fore in The Swan.
The ACO then played Erwin Schulhoff's Five Pieces for String Quartet, bringing out their incisive, sometimes wild, rhythmic vitality. A Communist and Jew, Schulhoff died in a Nazi prison in 1942.
With surging romantic melodies from Eyck on theremin and virtuosic flourishes from pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska, Miklos Rozsa's Spellbound Concerto, based on his Oscar-winning score for Hitchcock's Spellbound, concluded the first half.
After interval, the ACO strings played Jorg Widmann's 180 Beats Per Minute, a work of driven rhythmic inventiveness ending in a frenetic fugue. Harrison's Hovercraft exploited the theremin's more garish and outrageous gestures, making abundant use of slides that ducked and wove against cross-accents in disco style from the orchestra.
Japanese composer Yasushi Akutagawa travelled to Russia in the 1950s and befriended Shostakovich. That influence was clear in Akutagawa's Triptyque for String Orchestra with lively outer movements in neoclassical style framing a central Berceuse built from a lonely viola melody.
The final segment mixed popular film and TV scores including Star Trek, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Midsomer Murders, with Eyck's own Oakunar Lynntuja, and ended with a swirling virtuosic close in Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee.
You know when you walk in on an existing conversation, and automatically try to connect threads of what's being said? These two one-act plays by Harold Pinter are similar to that. No playwright was more influenced by Samuel Beckett, yet where Beckett gave us glimpses of universality, Pinter honed in on specifics, like looking at life through a keyhole. Those specifics are then shrouded in enigmas for the audience to decipher.
Directed by Mark Kilmurry with a fine ear and eye, The Lover (1962) and The Dumb Waiter (1957) are ideally mated both in terms of those enigmas, and also pragmatically, needing just three actors between them. That The Lover, originally penned for television, is marginally the lesser piece is down to the other's complete enthrallment.
The Lover concerns a married couple, Sarah (Nicole da Silva) and Richard (Gareth Davies), who matter-of-factly discuss her afternoon liaisons with her lover, Max, and his dalliances with a sex worker. Except Max is really Richard, and the sex worker is really Sarah: they playact for sexual titillation, which puts them on shaky ground. What if one of them breaks the game's unspoken rules?
Written by anyone else, it would be a straightforward comedy satirising the bored bourgeoisie, but Pinter deepens the shadows of each word. Da Silva and especially Davies skilfully play the piece ever so lightly, while implying this element of danger, whereby the game-playing could spiral towards a point of no return. It's akin to watching two domesticated cats who could turn feral.
But for combining tension with comedy, The Dumb Waiter, with its overt debt to Waiting for Godot, is supreme, and in just a few minutes during the interval, Simone Romaniuk's ingenious set is transformed from 60s swinging suburbia to the desolation and mould of a twin-bed basement which also has a dumb waiter – a miniature lift for delivering meals via a hatch in the wall.
Ben (Gareth Davies, playing his third role, effectively) and Gus (Anthony Taufa) are hitmen, holed up in the room waiting for instructions on their next target. Despite Ben just lying on a bed reading a newspaper ('87-year-old man crawls under stationary lorry and is run over'; 'eight-year-old girl kills cat') and Gus being busy finding squashed matches and cigarettes in his shoes, Ben is swiftly established as the boss; Gus the underling.
Davies, half the size of Taufa, is exceptional at conveying a menace and snappish temper from which Gus shrinks. Similarly, Taufa catches Gus' odd quality of being a bit thick, and yet having enough warmth and emotional and moral intelligence to be afflicted with a conscience.
The two actors bicker and spar with exceptional timing and feel for dynamics, meanwhile, the thriller-like tension continues to build, despite the constant supply of laughs. When his work is done this well, Pinter makes most playwrights seem mere hacks.
Until June 7
THEATRE
THE WRONG GODS
Belvoir St Theatre, May 7
★★★ ½
Reviewed by CASSIE TONGUE
How do we live – and live well – in a world marked by great pain, love and change? These questions sit at the heart of theatre itself: an art form created to help us wrestle with, and collectively witness, the great task of being alive.
They're also at the core of the work made by playwright S. Shakthidharan, whose epic Counting and Cracking first played at Sydney Town Hall in 2019 to instant acclaim, and last year played off-Broadway at New York's Public Theater.
His newest piece, The Wrong Gods – co-directed with Belvoir resident director Hannah Goodwin – is just as wide-ranging as his earlier epic, but it is far leaner in form, running a touch over 90 minutes.
We meet Isha (Radhika Mudaliyar) and her mother Nirmala (Nadie Kammallaweera) on the banks of their life-sustaining river. Isha dreams of a world beyond the village; Nirmala can't see how to give it to her, needing her daughter to work the land, just as generations of women in their family have done.
Then Lakshmi (Vaishnavi Suryaprakash) arrives, offering an American-backed opportunity too good to refuse. Suddenly, the wheels of progress are turning: land development, construction and technological advancement in farming. But are these new ways better than the old ones Nirmala knows in her bones? Can anything so sweeping come without strings? And who will Isha become if she abandons her land, her gods, and heads to the city?
There are moments in The Wrong Gods, shaped like a drama and directed like a fable, that are quietly moving and disarmingly powerful. On Keerthi Subramanyam's tree-ring set – built from sustainable and recycled wood as a symbolic tether to the threatened forest – these women argue, laugh, plan and fight, carrying a universe of feeling.
The play is at its strongest when its big ideas wear human faces. Much is communicated when Isha and Nirmala reckon with each other's hearts, and Manali Datar brings a much-needed grounding presence as Devi, a city-born ex-corporate who finds new life and community through solidarity with Nirmala's cause.
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There are moments, though, when the spell is broken – a scene or two that are more didactic than the narrative can hold, where dialogue is driven by expediency more than character, and a few performances are still settling into the rhythms of the script.
Perhaps that's to be expected from a play that's trying to take the measure of a world. The Wrong Gods digs deep into our collective scarring – from corruption, greed, colonisation and gentrification, of progress over people – and tries to find a message in our past for how to go on. Maybe hope lies in the act of gathering itself: to witness, to listen, to tell stories, to keep searching for what's true as the world shifts around us.
Until May 25