At some point over the Christmas holidays, there always seems to be a star-studded Agatha Christie TV adaptation to lie on the sofa with, whilst overdosing on Quality Street. It therefore felt somehow festive to enter CoPs in early December and instantly know from the magnificent staging that we were in for an evening of nostalgic whodunnit.

The play opened with all the visitors to a mysterious island off the coast of Devon collecting their period luggage from around the table at centre stage, setting the scene in a very energetic way for the mystery that was going to unfold over the next couple of hours. This energy and sense of period were features of Loretta Freeman’s production that were maintained throughout, bringing that cosy 1940s feel to murder that is what we all expect of Agatha Christie. One by one, the ten little soldiers arrived at the remote island home of Una N (or was it Ulick N?) Owen – eight strangers and two servants. As an audience, this is a lot of different characters to get to know in a very short space of time, but I needn’t have worried: the characterisation (and superb costuming) of all ten meant that we got to know all of them very easily – even those who weren’t around for long!

A particularly nice element of this setup was two of the visiting gentlemen – Jonathon Wallis’s Anthony Martson and Cameron Marklew’s Philip Lombard – vying for the attention of the mysterious Vera Claythorne (Jo Manser), who claimed to have applied for a secretarial position on the island. I won’t go into all the complex aspects of the plot, but suffice it to say that this little competition did not last long, as Mr Marston was the first of the cast to meet an untimely end, following a very effective and spooky gramophone recording that accused all ten of the house guests of various past crimes.

This first death was closely followed by that of the housekeeper, played by Ros Barnes, which led to the theory that the ten toy soldiers on the central table and the ‘Ten Little Soldiers’ poem that was conveniently framed on the wall of the living-room were going to foretell the fates of everyone in the house. In the hands of a less talented director, this device could have become tedious, but the staging of the toy soldiers worked very well. I couldn’t help checking them throughout the show to see whether someone else had been done in. The real interest, however, came not from understanding how the prophetic poem would play out, but from the strong characterisation and nicely varied performances across the cast. We did comment at the interval that we would have loved a copy of the poem in the programme to help with our forecasts!

Some highlights for me from among the remaining characters, before each unfortunately came to a sticky end, included Mel Powell’s moving and nuanced performance as John MacKenzie. Mel’s John was a somewhat befuddled ex-First World War general who still commanded respect from others and touchingly reminisced about his wife. Ultimately, I felt he sensed some relief from his guilt-ridden life as his death approached. I was very relieved when Loz Lowe’s South African accent turned out to be fake and belonged not to Mr Davis at all, but to a great cad of a character, William Blore. Loz’s costume, hair and overall performance were excellent, bringing a real feeling of an archetypal Agatha Christie character coming brilliantly off the page. If I remember rightly, his demise had something to do with the dead bear skin on the living-room wall. I was so pleased when this was mentioned as we’d had much discussion as to what species this fur was that we’d been puzzling over from the beginning!

Emily Brent was a seemingly mild and religious older lady among the assembled victims-to-be, but Hazel Halliday relished the unpleasant side of this character, such that when she slumped in her chair following an injection of something-or-other, I for one thought she thoroughly deserved it for the way she had treated her maid! On the evening I attended, Loretta Freeman stepped into the role of Mr Rogers due to illness in the cast. This must have been quite a challenge for the director, but Loretta handled it seamlessly, and full credit to all involved that this really did not affect the pace of the play or my enjoyment of the production.

My final two comments are for two of the longer-lived characters. Rez Mossavat’s Dr Armstrong was a very believable medic and the fake murder he colluded with the judge to stage worked very well. The fast-paced scene with him, Vera and Sir Wargrave towards the end in the dark with candles was very effectively staged and brought a great deal of tension to the play’s denouement. I also thought that Paul Morton’s performance as the deluded and recently retired judge struck exactly the right tone for such a complex character: you were never quite sure which bits of what he said were true and which were elements of his elaborate plot with the other nine ‘soldiers’. The final scene between him and Vera was superbly paced; Paul was genuinely terrifying and Jo’s reaction as she slowly realised her fate kept the tension high right until the final moments.

All in all, this was a very enjoyable December trip to CoPs, bringing pace, real intrigue and freshness to a period drama that many of us have known – or thought we knew – for many years.