When Robyn Nevin was asked by John Frost if she would direct Agatha Christie’s classic whodunit, The Mousetrap, for Crossroads Live, she admits her first thought was, “Oh, God, it’s such a funny, old-fashioned play.”

“But I hadn’t read it,” she adds. After picking up the script and discovering how well-written it was, she quickly accepted the offer to direct the 70th-anniversary Australian production.

Robyn Nevin. Photo © Hugh Stewart

Opening in Sydney in 2022, it toured nationally and then regionally, delighting audiences wherever it went.

The beautifully performed, highly entertaining production received wonderful reviews. Jason Blake described it as “springy and efficient” in The Guardian.

“The pace is cracking, the timing excellent, the characterisations warm and full.”

Now, Nevin is to direct a new production of And Then There Were None for the same producers, adapted by Christie from her 1939 book, which is the best-selling crime novel of all time.

“The Mousetrap was a joy to direct: complex characters, each carrying a secret,” says Nevin. “One was murdered, one was the killer. That is a mystery. This is a thriller. Christie at her finest. It’s a triumph of plotting and suspense.”

In And Then There Were None, eight...