On a storm-lashed island in August 1939, ten strangers collected by the unseen U.N. Owen discover gramophone accusations of their unpunished crimes; by breakfast one lies dead, then another, each murder matching the verse that hangs in every bedroom while a porcelain soldier vanishes from the mantel. Maeve Dermody’s guilt-racked Vera Claythorne, Aidan Turner’s mercenary Philip Lombard and Charles Dance’s hawk-eyed Justice Wargrave lead an ensemble whose class tensions curdle into claustrophobic paranoia across Craig Viveiros’s candle-lit rooms and slate-grey cliffs. Composer Stuart Earl’s low, keening strings replace the cosy whodunit comfort of Poirot or Marple; no detective arrives, only the tide carrying the next body.
Sarah Phelps’s three-night commission for Christie’s 125th anniversary keeps the book’s bleaker ending, restores the original title and pushes the body count to match. 6 million viewers watched the BBC One transmission, making it the most-watched British drama of 2015 and prompting Acorn to co-finance further Christie rewrites from Phelps. Shot entirely on location in Cornwall and a Surrey mansion, John Pardue’s cinematography turns the 180-minute running time into a bruised dusk where every silhouette might be the killer. Mammoth Screen’s 4K production design lingers on the dwindling figurines, counting down to the last, fatal line: and then there were none.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 3 Episodes / 2015
Created by: Sarah Phelps
Showrunner(s): Sarah Phelps, Damien Timmer
Writer(s): Sarah Phelps
Producer(s): Abi Bach
Cinematography: John Pardue
Music: Stuart Earl
Main Cast
Charles Dance as Justice Lawrence Wargrave
Maeve Dermody as Vera Claythorne
Aidan Turner as Philip Lombard
Burn Gorman as D.S. William Blore
Toby Stephens as Dr. Edward Armstrong
Miranda Richardson as Emily Brent
Noah Taylor as Thomas Rogers
Sam Neill as General John MacArthur
Anna Maxwell Martin as Ethel Rogers
Douglas Booth as Anthony Marston
Harley Gallacher as Cyril Ogilvie Hamilton
Joseph Prowen as Edward Seton
