It gained good reviews and ran for 260 performances until 24 February 1944 when the theatre was bombed. Īfter 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. Finally, Bertie Mayer, who had produced the 1928 play Alibi, agreed to stage it. She received some encouragement from Charles Cochrane but he was unable to find financial backers. Īfter the play had been written, most people she discussed it with considered it impossible to produce. This allowed Christie to portray a different conclusion on stage. 'He got married and then there were none' She knew the ending would have to be changed because 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 that inspired the title had an alternative ending: Christie refused, because she relished the challenge herself although it would take her two years to carry out the task. It was also performed under the name Ten Little Indians.Ĭhristie 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 Christie received a request from Reginald Simpson to be allowed to dramatise it.

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

And then there were none poem