“One of my great-grandmother’s things was that at no time is murder justifiable,” says Prichard firmly. Of all her work, however, this idea is most sharply interrogated in And Then There Were None. First published in 1939, the novel is her bestselling book, and has been adapted for both the stage and screen. A new production, directed by Robyn Nevin, is currently being staged.

And Then There Were None is one of Christie’s most technically complex works. Ten strangers arrive on an island. Then, locked off from the rest of the world, things start going terribly wrong. Under the simple surface lies a complex web of a plot. “It’s a very extraordinary concept that my great-grandmother played with for quite a long time in her head and then managed to make work,” says Prichard. “She was incredibly proud of it.”

Earlier versions of the play – penned by Christie herself – have a happier ending than the novel. “The play she wrote in the middle of the war, and it was felt that the book ending was too bleak, really, for a population that was enduring a world war,” says Prichard. The current production, however, hews more closely to the original text, something Prichard is glad about. “I feel that the book ending is the right one,” he says.

“It really is a very brutal story.” And so, for a production of And Then There Were None to work, “You have to take it seriously,” he says. “The opening scene has quite a lot of humour in it as it’s a sort of a little character play for a little bit, because you have to build these characters up very quickly. And that’s quite fun and quite jolly. But once it starts, you have to feel that sense of danger.”

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And Then There Were None is on in Melbourne at Comedy Theatre until March 23, Theatre Royal Sydney from May 3 to June 1, Perth at His Majesty’s Theatre from June 8 to 22, and Adelaide at Her Majesty’s Theatre from August 2 to 10.

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