document_title: Adobe Flash

question_text: what is the primary purpose for adding flash elements to a website

question_tokens: what is the primary purpose for adding flash elements to a website

text: Adobe Flash

text: Applications[edit]

text: Websites[edit]

text: In the early 2000s, Flash was widely installed on desktop computers, and was commonly used to display interactive web pages, online games, and to playback video and audio content.[3] In 2005, YouTube was founded by former PayPal employees, and it used Flash Player as a means to display compressed video content on the web.[3]

text: Between 2000 and 2010, numerous businesses used Flash-based websites to launch new products, or to create interactive company portals.[4] Notable users include Nike, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, General Electric, World Wildlife Fund, HBO, Cartoon Network and Disney.[4][5] After Adobe introduced hardware-accelerated 3D for Flash (Stage3D), Flash websites saw a growth of 3D content for product demonstrations and virtual tours.[6][7]

text: In 2007, YouTube offered videos in HTML5 format to support the iPhone and iPad, which did not support Flash Player.[3] After a controversy with Apple, Adobe stopped developing Flash Player for Mobile, focussing its efforts on Adobe AIR applications and HTML5 animation.[3] In 2015, Google introduced Google Swiffy to convert Flash animation to HTML5, a tool Google would use to automatically convert Flash web ads for mobile devices.[8] In 2015, YouTube switched to HTML5 technology on all devices, however it will preserve the Flash-based video player for older web browsers.[9][10][11]

text: RIAs[edit]

text: After Flash 5 introduced ActionScript in 2000, developers combined the visual and programming capabilities of Flash to produce interactive experiences and applications for the Web.[12] Such Web-based applications eventually came to be known as "Rich Internet Applications" (RIAs).[12]

text: In 2004, Macromedia Flex was released, and specifically targeted the application development market.[12] Flex introduced new user interface components, advanced data visualization components, data remoting, and a modern IDE (Flash Builder).[12][13] Flex competed with Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) and Microsoft Silverlight during its tenure.[12] Flex was upgraded to support integration with remote data sources, using AMF, BlazeDS, Adobe LiveCycle, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, and others.[14] As of 2015, Flex applications can be published for desktop platforms using Adobe AIR.[12]

text: Between 2006 and 2016, the Speedtest.net web service conducted over 9.0 billion speed tests using an RIA built with Adobe Flash.[15][16] In 2016, the service shifted to HTML5 due to the decreasing availability of Adobe Flash Player on PCs.[17]

text: As of 2016, Web applications and RIAs can be developed with Flash using the ActionScript 3.0 programming language and related tools such as Adobe Flash Builder. Third-party IDEs such as FlashDevelop and Powerflasher FDT also enable developers to create Flash games and applications, and are generally similar to Microsoft Visual Studio. Flex applications are typically built using Flex frameworks such as PureMVC.[14]

text: Video games[edit]

text: Flash video games were popular on the Internet, with portals like Newgrounds dedicated to hosting of Flash-based games. Popular games developed with Flash include Angry Birds, Clash of Clans, FarmVille, AdventureQuest, Machinarium, Hundreds, N, QWOP and Solipskier.

text: Adobe introduced various technologies to help build video games, including Adobe AIR (to release games for desktop or mobile platforms), Adobe Scout (to improve performance), CrossBridge (to convert C++-based games to run in Flash), and Stage3D (to support GPU-accelerated video games). 3D frameworks like Away3D and Flare3D simplified creation of 3D content for Flash.

text: Adobe AIR allows creation of Flash-based mobile games, which may be published to the Google Play and Apple app stores.

text: Flash is also used to build interfaces and HUDs for 3D video games using Scaleform GFx, a technology that renders Flash content within non-Flash video games. Scaleform is supported by more than 10 major video game engines including Unreal Engine, UDK, CryEngine and PhyreEngine, and has been used to provide 3D interfaces for more than 150 major video game titles since its launch in 2003.

text: Film and animation[edit]

text: Adobe Animate is one of the common animation programs for low-cost 2D television and commercial animation, in competition with Anime Studio and Toon Boom Animation.

text: Notable users of Flash include DHX Media Vancouver for productions including Pound Puppies and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Fresh TV for Total Drama, Nelvana for 6teen and Clone High, Williams Street for Metalocalypse and Squidbillies, Nickelodeon Animation Studios for Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, Danny Phantom, and more.

text: Flash is less commonly used for feature-length animated films; however, 2009's The Secret of Kells, an Irish film, was animated primarily in Adobe Flash, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 82nd Academy Awards.

text: Several popular online series are currently produced in Flash, such as the Emmy Award-winning Off-Mikes, produced by ESPN and Animax Entertainment; Happy Tree Friends; Gotham Girls, produced by Warner Brothers; Crime Time, produced by Future Thought Productions and Homestar Runner produced by Mike and Matt Chapman.

text: Various third-party software packages designed for traditionally trained cartoonists and animators can publish animations in the SWF format.

text: History[edit]

text: FutureWave[edit]

text: The precursor to Flash was a product named SmartSketch, published by FutureWave Software. The company was founded by Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh.[18][19][20][21] SmartSketch was a vector drawing application for pen computers running the PenPoint OS.[22][23] When PenPoint failed in the marketplace, SmartSketch was ported to Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.[19][24]

text: As the Internet became more popular, FutureWave realized the potential for a vector-based web animation tool that might challenge Macromedia Shockwave technology.[18][19] In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding frame-by-frame animation features and released this new product as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and PC.[18][19][25][26]

text: FutureWave approached Adobe Systems with an offer to sell them FutureSplash in 1995, but Adobe turned down the offer at that time.[19] Microsoft wanted to create an "online TV network" (MSN 2.0) and adopted FutureSplash animated content as a central part of it.[19] Disney Online used FutureSplash animations for their subscription-based service Disney's Daily Blast.[18][19] Fox Broadcasting Company launched The Simpsons using FutureSplash.[19]

text: Macromedia[edit]

text: In November 1996, FutureSplash was acquired by Macromedia, and Macromedia re-branded and released FutureSplash Animator as Macromedia Flash 1.0. Flash was a two-part system, a graphics and animation editor known as Macromedia Flash, and a player known as Macromedia Flash Player.

text: FutureSplash Animator was an animation tool originally developed for pen-based computing devices. Due to the small size of the FutureSplash Viewer, it was particularly suited for download on the Web. Macromedia distributed Flash Player as a free browser plugin in order to quickly gain market share. By 2005, more computers worldwide had Flash Player installed than any other Web media format, including Java, QuickTime, RealNetworks and Windows Media Player.[27]

text: Macromedia upgraded the Flash system between 1996 and 1999 adding MovieClips, Actions (the precursor to ActionScript), Alpha transparency, and other features. As Flash matured, Macromedia's focus shifted from marketing it as a graphics and media tool to promoting it as a Web application platform, adding scripting and data access capabilities to the player while attempting to retain its small footprint.

text: In 2000, the first major version of ActionScript was developed, and released with Flash 5. Actionscript 2.0 was released with Flash MX 2004 and supported object-oriented programming, improved UI components and other programming features. The last version of Flash released by Macromedia was Flash 8, which focused on graphical upgrades such as filters (blur, drop shadow, etc.), blend modes (similar to Adobe Photoshop), and advanced features for FLV video.

text: Adobe[edit]

text: Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005, and the entire Macromedia product line including Flash, Dreamweaver, Director/Shockwave, Fireworks (which has since been discontinued) and Authorware is now handled by Adobe.

text: In 2007, Adobe's first version release was Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, the ninth major version of Flash. It introduced the ActionScript 3.0 programming language, which supported modern programming practices and enabled business applications to be developed with Flash. Adobe Flex Builder (built on Eclipse) targeted the enterprise application development market, and was also released the same year. Flex Builder included the Flex SDK, a set of components that included charting, advanced UI, and data services (Flex Data Services).

text: In 2008, Adobe released the tenth version of Flash, Adobe Flash CS4. Flash 10 improved animation capabilities within the Flash editor, adding a motion editor panel (similar to Adobe After Effects), inverse kinematics (bones), basic 3D object animation, object-based animation, and other text and graphics features. Flash Player 10 included an in-built 3D engine (without GPU acceleration) that allowed basic object transformations in 3D space (position, rotation, scaling).

text: Also in 2008, Adobe released the first version of Adobe Integrated Runtime (later re-branded as Adobe AIR), a runtime engine that replaced Flash Player, and provided additional capabilities to the ActionScript 3.0 language to build desktop and mobile applications. With AIR, developers could access the file system (the user's files and folders), and connected devices suxh as joystick, gamepad and sensors for the first time.

text: In 2011, Adobe Flash Player 11 was released, and with it the first version of Stage3D, allowing GPU-accelerated 3D rendering for Flash applications and games on desktop platforms such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.[28] Adobe further improved 3D capabilities from 2011 to 2013, adding support for 3D rendering on Android and iOS platforms, alpha-channels, compressed textures, texture atlases, and other features.[29][30] Adobe AIR was upgraded to support 64-bit computers, and to allow developers to add additional functionality to the AIR runtime using AIR Native Extensions (ANE).

text: In 2014, Adobe AIR reached a milestone with over 100,000 unique applications built, and over 1 billion installations logged across the world (May 2014).[31][32] Adobe AIR was voted the Best Mobile Application Development product at the Consumer Electronics Show on two consecutive years (CES 2014 and CES 2015).[33][34] In 2016, Adobe renamed Flash Professional, the primary authoring software for Flash content, to Adobe Animate to reflect its growing use for authoring HTML5 content in favour of Flash content.[35]

text: Open Screen Project[edit]

text: On May 1, 2008, Adobe announced the Open Screen Project, with the intent of providing a consistent application interface across devices such as personal computers, mobile devices, and consumer electronics.[36] When the project was announced, seven goals were outlined: the abolition of licensing fees for Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Integrated Runtime, the removal of restrictions on the use of the Shockwave Flash (SWF) and Flash Video (FLV) file formats, the publishing of application programming interfaces for porting Flash to new devices, and the publishing of The Flash Cast protocol and Action Message Format (AMF), which let Flash applications receive information from remote databases.[36]

text: As of February 2009[update], the specifications removing the restrictions on the use of SWF and FLV/F4V specs have been published.[37] The Flash Cast protocol—now known as the Mobile Content Delivery Protocol—and AMF protocols have also been made available,[37] with AMF available as an open source implementation, BlazeDS.

text: The list of mobile device providers who have joined the project includes Palm, Motorola, and Nokia,[38] who, together with Adobe, have announced a $10 million Open Screen Project fund.[39] As of 2012[update], the Open Screen Project is no longer accepting new applications according to partner BSQuare. However paid licensing is still an option for device makers who want to use Adobe software.[citation needed]

text: End of life[edit]

text: Although Flash was previously a dominant platform for online multimedia content, it is slowly being abandoned as Adobe favors a transition to HTML5 due to inherent security flaws and significant resources required to maintain the platform. Apple restricted the use of Flash on iOS due to concerns that it performed poorly on its mobile devices, had negative impact on battery life, and was deemed unnecessary for online content.[40][41] As a result, it was not adopted by Apple for its smartphone and tablet devices, which also reduced its user base and encouraged wider adoption of HTML5 features such as the canvas and video elements, which can replace Flash without the need for plugins. In 2015, Adobe rebranded its Flash authoring environment as Adobe Animate to emphasize its expanded support for HTML5 authoring, and stated that it would "encourage content creators to build with new web standards" rather than using Flash.[42] In July 2017, Adobe announced that it would declare Flash to be end-of-life in 2020, and will cease support, distribution, and security updates to Flash Player.[43] After the announcement, developers have started a petition to turn Flash into an open-source project, leading to controversy.[44]

text: The Flash Platform will continue in the form of Adobe AIR, which Adobe will continue to develop, and OpenFL, a multi-target open-source implementation of the Flash API.[45]

text: Format[edit]

text: FLA[edit]

text: Flash source files are in the FLA format, and contain graphics and animation, as well as embedded assets such as bitmap images, audio files and FLV video files. The Flash source file format is a proprietary format and Adobe Animate is the only available authoring tool capable of editing such files. Flash source files (.fla) may be compiled into Flash movie files (.swf) using Adobe Animate. Note that FLA files can be edited, but output (.swf) files cannot.

text: SWF[edit]

text: Flash movie files are in the SWF format, traditionally called "ShockWave Flash" movies, "Flash movies", or "Flash applications", usually have a .swf file extension, and may be used in the form of a web page plug-in, strictly "played" in a standalone Flash Player, or incorporated into a self-executing Projector movie (with the .exe extension in Microsoft Windows). Flash Video files[spec 1] have a .flv file extension and are either used from within .swf files or played through a flv-aware player, such as VLC, or QuickTime and Windows Media Player with external codecs added.

text: The use of vector graphics combined with program code allows Flash files to be smaller—and thus allows streams to use less bandwidth—than the corresponding bitmaps or video clips. For content in a single format (such as just text, video, or audio), other alternatives may provide better performance and consume less CPU power than the corresponding Flash movie, for example when using transparency or making large screen updates such as photographic or text fades.

text: In addition to a vector-rendering engine, the Flash Player includes a virtual machine called the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM) for scripting interactivity at run-time, with video, MP3-based audio, and bitmap graphics. As of Flash Player 8, it offers two video codecs: On2 Technologies VP6 and Sorenson Spark, and run-time JPEG, Progressive JPEG, PNG, and GIF capability.

text: Flash Player 11 introduced a full 3D shader API, called Stage3D, which is fairly similar to WebGL.[46][47] Stage3D enables GPU-accelerated rendering of 3D graphics within Flash games and applications, and has been used to build Angry Birds, and a couple of other notable games.

text: Various 3D frameworks have been built for Flash using Stage3D, such as Away3D 4,[47] CopperCube,[48] Flare3D,[49] Starling,.[50]:vii Professional game engines like Unreal Engine[51][52] and Unity also export Flash versions which use Stage3D to render 3D graphics.

text: Flash Video[edit]

text: Virtually all browser plugins for video are free of charge and cross-platform, including Adobe's offering of Flash Video, which was first introduced with Flash version 6. Flash Video has been a popular choice for websites due to the large installed user base and programmability of Flash. In 2010, Apple publicly criticized Adobe Flash, including its implementation of video playback for not taking advantage of hardware acceleration, one reason Flash is not to be found on Apple's mobile devices. Soon after Apple's criticism, Adobe demoed and released a beta version of Flash 10.1, which takes advantage of GPU hardware acceleration even on a Mac. Flash 10.2 beta, released December 2010, adds hardware acceleration for the whole video rendering pipeline.

text: Flash Player supports two distinct modes of video playback, and hardware accelerated video decoding may not be used for older video content. Such content causes excessive CPU usage compared to comparable content played with other players.

text:
Software Rendered Video : Flash Player supports software rendered video since version 6. Such video supports vector animations displayed above the video content. This obligation may, depending on graphic APIs exposed by the operating system, prohibit using a video overlay, like a traditional multimedia player would use, with the consequence that color space conversion and scaling must happen in software.[53]
Hardware Accelerated Video : Flash Player supports hardware accelerated video playback since version 10.2, for H.264, F4V, and FLV video formats. Such video is displayed above all Flash content, and takes advantage of video codec chipsets installed on the user's device. Developers must specifically use the "StageVideo" technology within Flash Player in order for hardware decoding to be enabled. Flash Player internally uses technologies such as DirectX Video Acceleration and OpenGL to do so.

tag: ul

text: In tests done by Ars Technica in 2008 and 2009, Adobe Flash Player performed better on Windows than Mac OS X and Linux with the same hardware.[54][55] Performance has later improved for the latter two, on Mac OS X with Flash Player 10.1,[56] and on Linux with Flash Player 11.[57]

text: Flash Audio[edit]

text: Flash Audio is most commonly encoded in MP3 or AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) however it can also use ADPCM, Nellymoser (Nellymoser Asao Codec) and Speex audio codecs. Flash allows sample rates of 11, 22 and 44.1 kHz. It cannot have 48 kHz audio sample rate, which is the standard TV and DVD sample rate.

text: On August 20, 2007, Adobe announced on its blog that with Update 3 of Flash Player 9, Flash Video will also implement some parts of the MPEG-4 international standards.[58] Specifically, Flash Player will work with video compressed in H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10), audio compressed using AAC (MPEG-4 Part 3), the F4V, MP4 (MPEG-4 Part 14), M4V, M4A, 3GP and MOV multimedia container formats, 3GPP Timed Text specification (MPEG-4 Part 17), which is a standardized subtitle format and partial parsing capability for the 'ilst' atom, which is the ID3 equivalent iTunes uses to store metadata. MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.263 will not work in F4V file format. Adobe also announced that it will be gradually moving away from the FLV format to the standard ISO base media file format (MPEG-4 Part 12) owing to functional limits with the FLV structure when streaming H.264. The final release of the Flash Player implementing some parts of MPEG-4 standards had become available in Fall 2007.[59]

text: Adobe Flash Player 10.1 does not have acoustic echo cancellation, unlike the VoIP offerings of Skype and Google Voice, making this and earlier versions of Flash less suitable for group calling or meetings. Flash Player 10.3 Beta incorporates acoustic echo cancellation.

text: Scripting language[edit]

text: ActionScript is the programming language used by Flash. It is an enhanced superset of the ECMAScript programming language, with a classical Java-style class model, rather than JavaScript's prototype model.

text: Specifications[edit]

text: In October 1998, Macromedia disclosed the Flash Version 3 Specification on its website. It did this in response to many new and often semi-open formats competing with SWF, such as Xara's Flare and Sharp's Extended Vector Animation formats. Several developers quickly created a C library for producing SWF. In February 1999, MorphInk 99 was introduced, the first third-party program to create SWF files. Macromedia also hired Middlesoft to create a freely available developers' kit for the SWF file format versions 3 to 5.

text: Macromedia made the Flash Files specifications for versions 6 and later available only under a non-disclosure agreement, but they are widely available from various sites.

text: In April 2006, the Flash SWF file format specification was released with details on the then newest version format (Flash 8). Although still lacking specific information on the incorporated video compression formats (On2, Sorenson Spark, etc.), this new documentation covered all the new features offered in Flash v8 including new ActionScript commands, expressive filter controls, and so on. The file format specification document is offered only to developers who agree to a license agreement that permits them to use the specifications only to develop programs that can export to the Flash file format. The license does not allow the use of the specifications to create programs that can be used for playback of Flash files. The Flash 9 specification was made available under similar restrictions.[60]

text: In June 2009, Adobe launched the Open Screen Project (Adobe link), which made the SWF specification available without restrictions. Previously, developers could not use the specification for making SWF-compatible players, but only for making SWF-exporting authoring software. The specification still omits information on codecs such as Sorenson Spark, however.[61]

text: Animation tools[edit]

text: Official tools[edit]

text: The Adobe Animate authoring program is primarily used to design graphics and animation and publish the same for websites, web applications, and video games. The program also offers limited support for audio and video embedding, and ActionScript scripting.

text: Adobe released Adobe LiveMotion, designed to create interactive animation content and export it to a variety of formats, including SWF. LiveMotion failed to gain any notable user base.[specify]

text: In February 2003, Macromedia purchased Presedia, which had developed a Flash authoring tool that automatically converted PowerPoint files into Flash. Macromedia subsequently released the new product as Breeze, which included many new enhancements.

text: Third-party tools[edit]

text: Various free and commercial software packages can output animations into the Flash SWF format, suitable for display on the web, including:

text:
SWiSH Max is an animation editor with preset animation, developed by an ex-employee of Macromedia, that can output Flash animations
Toon Boom is a traditional animation tool that can output Flash animations
Apple Keynote allows users to export presentations to Flash SWF animations
Xara Photo & Graphic Designer can output Flash animations
Ajax Animator aim to create a Flash development environment
KToon can edit vectors and generate SWF, but its interface is very different from Macromedia's
Screencast and Screencam, produces demos or tutorials by capturing the screen and generating a Flash animation of the same
GoAnimate is a software as a service tool to create animated videos.
Anime Studio is a 2D animation software package specialized for character animation, that creates Flash animations
Question Writer publishes its quizzes to Flash animations
OpenOffice Impress
Toufee
KoolMoves
Express Animator
CelAction2D
Alligator Flash Designer
Amara Web
Clash
Salasaga
Synfig

text: The Flash 4 Linux project was an initiative to develop an open source Linux application as an alternative to Adobe Animate. Development plans included authoring capacity for 2D animation, and tweening, as well as outputing SWF file formats. F4L evolved into an editor that was capable of authoring 2D animation and publishing of SWF files. Flash 4 Linux was renamed UIRA. UIRA intended to combine the resources and knowledge of the F4L project and the Qflash project, both of which were Open Source applications that aimed to provide an alternative to the proprietary Adobe Flash.

text: Programming tools[edit]

text: Official tools[edit]

text: Adobe provides a series of tools to develop software applications and video games for Flash:

text:
Apache Flex SDK – a free, open source SDK to compile Flash-based rich Internet applications from source code. The Apache Flex ActionScript 3.0 compiler generates SWF files from ActionScript 3 files. Flex was the primary ActionScript 3 compiler and was actively developed by Adobe before it was donated to Apache Software Foundation in 2011.
Adobe Animate – primarily used to design graphics and animation, but supports ActionScript scripting and debugging.
Adobe Flash Builder – enterprise application development & debugging, contains the Flex SDK with UI and charting components.
Adobe Scout – a visual profiler to optimize performance of Flash content.
CrossBridge – a free SDK to cross-compile C++ code to run in Flash Player.

text: Third-party tools[edit]

text: Third-party development tools have been created to assist developers in creating software applications and video games with Flash.

text:
FlashDevelop is a free and open-source Flash ActionScript IDE, which includes a project manager and debugger for building applications on Flash Player and Adobe AIR.
Powerflasher FDT is a commercial ActionScript IDE similar to FlashDevelop.
Haxe is an open source, high-level object-oriented programming language geared towards web-content creation that can compile SWF files from Haxe programs. As of 2012, Haxe can build programs for Flash Player that perform faster than the same application built with the Adobe Flex SDK compiler, due to additional compiler optimizations supported in Haxe.[62][unreliable source?]
SWFTools (specifically, swfc) is an open-source ActionScript 3.0 compiler which generates SWF files from script files, which includes SVG tags.
swfmill and MTASC also provide tools to create SWF files by compiling text, ActionScript or XML files into Flash animations
Ming library, to create SWF files programmatically, has interfaces for C, PHP, C++, Perl, Python, and Ruby. It is able to import and export graphics from XML into SWF.

text: Players[edit]

text: Proprietary[edit]

text: Adobe Flash Player is the multimedia and application player originally developed by Macromedia and acquired by Adobe Systems. It plays SWF files, which can be created by Adobe Animate, Apache Flex, or a number of other Adobe Systems and 3rd party tools. It has support for a scripting language called ActionScript, which can be used to display Flash Video from an SWF file.

text: Scaleform GFx is a commercial alternative Flash player that features fully hardware-accelerated 2D graphics rendering using the GPU. Scaleform has high conformance with both Flash 10 ActionScript 3[63] and Flash 8 ActionScript 2. Scaleform GFx is a game development middleware solution that helps create graphical user interfaces or HUDs within 3D video games. It does not work with web browsers.

text: IrfanView, an image viewer, uses Flash Player to display SWF files.

text: Open source[edit]

text: OpenFL is an open-source implementation of the Adobe Flash API.[45] It allows developers to build a single application against the OpenFL APIs and simultaneously target multiple platforms including iOS, Android, HTML5 (choice of Canvas, WebGL, SVG or DOM), Windows, macOS, Linux, WebAssembly, Flash, AIR, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, TiVo, Raspberry Pi, and Node.js.[64]

text: OpenFL mirrors the Flash API for graphical operations. OpenFL applications can be written in Haxe, JavaScript (EcmaScript 5 or 6+), or TypeScript.[65]

text: Lightspark is a free and open source SWF player that supports most of ActionScript 3.0 and has a Mozilla-compatible plug-in.[66] It will fall back on Gnash, a free SWF player supporting ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0 (AVM1) code. Lightspark supports OpenGL-based rendering for 3D content. The player is also compatible with H.264 Flash videos on YouTube.

text: Gnash aims to create a software player and browser plugin replacement for the Adobe Flash Player. Gnash can play SWF files up to version 7, and 80% of ActionScript 2.0.[67] Gnash run on Windows, Linux and other platforms for the 32-bit, 64-bit, and other operating systems, but development has slowed significantly in recent years.

text: Shumway was an open source Flash Player released by Mozilla in November 2012. It was built in JavaScript and is thus compatible with modern web-browsers.[68][69][70] In early October 2013, Shumway was included by default in the Firefox nightly branch.[71] Shumway rendered Flash contents by translating contents inside Flash files to HTML5 elements, and running an ActionScript interpreter in JavaScript.[72] It supported both AVM1 and AVM2, and ActionScript versions 1, 2, and 3.[73] Development of Shumway ceased in early 2016.[74]

text: Adobe Flash Player cannot ship as part of a pure open source, or completely free operating system, as its distribution is bound to the Macromedia Licensing Program and subject to proposition first from Adobe.[75]

text: Availability[edit]

text: Desktop computers[edit]

text: Flash Player[edit]

text: Adobe Flash has been deprecated.[1] The latest version of Adobe Flash Player is available for three major desktop platforms, including Windows, macOS and Linux.[76] On Linux the PPAPI plug-in is available; the NPAPI version wasn't updated to new major versions for a while[77] until Adobe changed its mind on stopping support and its former plan to discontinue "in 2017".[78]

text: Adobe Flash Player is available in four flavors:

text:
ActiveX-based Plug-in
NPAPI-based Plug-in
PPAPI-based Plug-in
Projector

text: The ActiveX version is an ActiveX control for use in Internet Explorer and any other Windows applications that supports ActiveX technology. The Plug-in versions are available for browsers supporting either NPAPI or PPAPI plug-ins on Microsoft Windows, macOS and Linux. The projector version is a standalone player that can open SWF files directly.[79]

text: The following table documents Flash Player and Adobe AIR support on desktop operating systems:

text:
Operating System
Prerequisites
Usage
Latest Adobe Flash Player
Browser Support

Microsoft Windows
Windows XP (32-bit, AIR only) / Vista (32-bit, AIR only) / 7 / 8.1 / 10[76][80]
Internet Browser, Standalone Applications
Flash Player 25.0,[81] AIR 25.0[82]
Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Opera

macOS
OS X 10.9 or newer (Flash Player)[76] / Mac OS X 10.7 or newer (AIR)[80]
Internet Browser, Standalone Applications
Flash Player 25.0,[81] AIR 25.0[82]
Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, Opera

Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 or newer / openSUSE 11.3 or newer / Ubuntu 10.04 or newer[76]
Internet Browser
Flash Player 25.0.0.127 (NPAPI), Flash Player 25.0.0.127 (PPAPI)[81]
Firefox (NPAPI) / Chrome, Chromium, Opera (PPAPI)

tag: table

text: Adobe AIR[edit]

text: The latest version of Adobe AIR, version 18, contains Adobe Flash Player 18, and is available for Windows XP and later, as well as macOS.[83] Official support for desktop Linux distributions ceased in June 2011 with version 2.6.[84]

text:
Platform
Installer file support
App Store support

Windows
.air, .exe and .msi[85][86]
None

macOS
.air and .dmg[86]
With captive runtime[87]

Android
.apk[88]
Google Play[88]

iOS
.ipa[89]
iTunes Store[89]

PlayBook
.bar[90]
BlackBerry App World[90]

text: Mobile devices[edit]

text: Flash Player[edit]

text: Adobe Flash Player was available for a variety of mobile operating systems, including Android (between versions 2.2[91] and 4.0.4[92]), Pocket PC/Windows CE, QNX (e.g. on BlackBerry PlayBook), Symbian, Palm OS, and webOS (since version 2.0[93]). Flash Player for smart phones was made available to handset manufacturers at the end of 2009.[94]

text: However, in November 2011, Adobe announced the withdrawal of support for Flash Player on mobile devices.[95] Adobe continues to support deploying Flash-based content as mobile applications via Adobe AIR.

text: Adobe is reaffirming its commitment to "aggressively contribute" to HTML5.[96][97] Adobe announced the end of Flash for mobile platforms or TV, instead focusing on HTML5 for browser content and Adobe AIR for the various mobile application stores[98][99][100][101] and described it as "the beginning of the end".[102] BlackBerry LTD (formerly known as RIM) announced that it would continue to develop Flash Player for the PlayBook.[103]

text: There is no Adobe Flash Player for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch). However, Flash content can be made to run on iOS devices in a variety of ways:

text:
Flash content can be bundled inside an Adobe AIR app, which will then run on iOS devices. (Apple did not allow this for a while, but they relaxed those restrictions in September 2010.[104])
On March 8, 2011, Techradar reported that Adobe provides an experimental server side tool (Wallaby) to convert Flash programs (as far as possible) to HTML5 code, thus allowing iOS devices to display the content.[105]
If the content is Flash video being served by Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5, the server will translate and send the video as HTTP Dynamic Streaming or HTTP Live Streaming, both of which can be played by iOS devices.[106]
Some specialized mobile browsers manage to accommodate Flash via streaming content from the cloud directly to a user's device. Some examples are Photon Browser[107] and Puffin Web Browser.[108]

text: The mobile version of Internet Explorer for Windows Phone cannot play Flash content,[109] however Flash support is still present on the tablet version of Windows.[110]

text: Adobe AIR[edit]

text: This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (March 2016)

text: Adobe AIR was released in 2008, and allows the creation of mobile applications and mobile games using Flash and ActionScript. Notable mobile games built with Flash include Angry Birds, Machinarium and Defend Your Castle.

text: Using AIR, developers can access the full Adobe Flash functionality, including text, vector graphics, raster graphics, video, audio, camera and microphone capability. Adobe AIR also includes additional features such as file system integration, native client extensions, desktop integration and access to connected devices and sensors.

text: AIR applications can be published as native phone applications on certain mobile operating systems, such as Android (ARM Cortex-A8 and above[111]) and Apple iOS.[83]

text: The following table explains to what extent Adobe AIR can run on various mobile operating systems:

text:
Operating System
Prerequisites
Latest Adobe Flash Player
AIR Framework

Android
Android 2.3+, ARM Cortex-A8+[112] or Android x86[113]
AIR 3.6.0.597 (uses Flash Player 11.6)[114]
Option 1: The AIR player can be embedded as a 'captive' runtime, which increases APK size but makes the application standalone.[115]
Option 2: The runtime is not included with the app, and must installed as a separate app from the app market.[116]

Apple iOS
iOS 4.3 or later
AIR 3.6.0.597 (uses Flash Player 11.6)[114]
Not applicable: each app includes its own 'captive' runtime.[117]

BlackBerry Tablet OS
None
AIR 3.1 (uses Flash Player 11.1)[118][119]
Already pre-installed on each device.[117]

BlackBerry 10
Blackberry 10.2 and lower (no longer supported from 10.3)[120]
AIR 3.5 (uses Flash Player 11.1)
Already pre-installed on each device.

text: Portable electronic devices[edit]

text: Adobe Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player intended for mobile phones[121] and other portable electronic devices like Chumby and iRiver.

text: On the emerging single-board enthusiast market, as substantially popularized by the Raspberry Pi, support from Adobe is lacking. However, the open-source player Gnash has been ported and found to be useful.[122]

text: Alternatives[edit]

text: OpenFL[edit]

text: OpenFL is an open-source implementation of the Adobe Flash technology. It allows developers to build a single application against the OpenFL APIs, and simultaneously target multiple platforms including Flash/AIR, HTML5, Windows, Android, Tizen, Neko, BlackBerry and webOS. OpenFL mirrors the Flash API for graphical operations. OpenFL applications are written in Haxe, a modern multi-platform programming language.

text: More than 500 video games have been developed with OpenFL,[123] including the BAFTA-award-winning game Papers, Please, Rymdkapsel, Lightbot and Madden NFL Mobile.

text: HTML5 is often cited as an alternative to Adobe Flash technology usage on web pages. Adobe released a tool that converts Flash to HTML5,[124] and in June 2011, Google released an experimental tool that does the same.[125][126] In January 2015, YouTube defaulted to HTML5 players to better support more devices.[127]

text: Flash to HTML5[edit]

text: The following tools allow running Flash content in web browsers using HTML5:

text:
Adobe Edge Animate was designed to produce HTML5 animations directly.[128]
Adobe Animate now allows Flash animations to be published into HTML5 content directly.
Google Swiffy - A web-based tool developed by Google that converts SWF files into HTML5, using SVG for graphics and JavaScript for animation
Mozilla Shumway, a Flash virtual machine written in JavaScript.
CreateJS is library that while available separately was also adopted by Adobe as a replacement for Wallaby in CS6. Unlike Wallaby, which was a standalone program, the "Toolkit for CreateJS" only works as a plug-in inside Flash Professional; it generates output for the HTML5 canvas, animated with JavaScript.[129][130] Around December 2013, the toolkit was integrated directly into Flash Professional CC.[131][132]

text: Criticisms[edit]

text: Mobile support[edit]

text: Websites built with Adobe Flash will not function on most modern mobile devices running Google Android or iOS (iPhone, iPad). The only alternative is using HTML5 and responsive web design to build websites that support both desktop and mobile devices.

text: However, Flash is still used to build mobile games using Adobe AIR. Such games will not work in mobile web browsers, but must be installed via the appropriate app store.

text: Vendor dependence[edit]

text: The reliance on Adobe for decoding Flash makes its use on the World Wide Web a concern—the completeness of its public specifications are debated, and no complete implementation of Flash is publicly available in source code form with a license that permits reuse. Generally, public specifications are what makes a format re-implementable (see future proofing data storage), and reusable codebases can be ported to new platforms without the endorsement of the format creator.

text: Adobe's restrictions on the use of the SWF/FLV specifications were lifted in February 2009 (see Adobe's Open Screen Project). However, despite efforts of projects like Gnash, Swfdec and Lightspark, a complete free Flash player is yet to be seen, as of September 2011. For example, Gnash cannot use SWF v10 yet.[133] Notably, Gnash was listed on the Free Software Foundation's high priority list, from at least 2007, to its overdue removal in January 2017.[134]

text: Notable advocates of free software, open standards, and the World Wide Web have warned against the use of Flash:

text: The founder of Mozilla Europe, Tristan Nitot, stated in 2008:[135]

text: Companies building websites should beware of proprietary rich-media technologies like Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight. (...) You're producing content for your users and there's someone in the middle deciding whether users should see your content.

text: Representing open standards, inventor of CSS and co-author of HTML5, Håkon Wium Lie explained in a Google tech talk of 2007, entitled "the <video> element", the proposal of Theora as the format for HTML5 video:[136]

text: I believe very strongly, that we need to agree on some kind of baseline video format if [the video element] is going to succeed. Flash is today the baseline format on the web. The problem with Flash is that it's not an open standard.

text: Representing the free software movement, Richard Stallman stated in a speech in 2004 that:[137] "The use of Flash in websites is a major problem for our community."

text: Accessibility[edit]

text: Usability consultant Jakob Nielsen published an Alertbox in 2000 entitled, Flash: 99% Bad, stating that "Flash tends to degrade websites for three reasons: it encourages design abuse, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction principles, and it distracts attention from the site's core value."[138] Some problems have been at least partially fixed since Nielsen's complaints: Text size can be controlled using full page zoom and it has been possible for authors to include alternative text in Flash since Flash Player 6.

text: Flash blocking in web browsers[edit]

text: Flash content is usually embedded using the object or embed HTML element.[139] A web browser that does not fully implement one of these elements displays the replacement text, if supplied by the web page. Often, a plugin is required for the browser to fully implement these elements, though some users cannot or will not install it.

text: Since Flash can be used to produce content (such as advertisements) that some users find obnoxious or take a large amount of bandwidth to download, some web browsers, by default, do not play Flash content until the user clicks on it, e.g. Konqueror, K-Meleon.

text: Most current browsers have a feature to block plugins, playing one only when the user clicks it. Opera versions since 10.5 feature native Flash blocking. Opera Turbo requires the user to click to play Flash content, and the browser also allows the user to enable this option permanently. Both Chrome[140] and Firefox[141] have an option to enable "click to play plugins". Equivalent "Flash blocker" extensions are also available for many popular browsers: Firefox has Flashblock and NoScript, Internet Explorer has Foxie, which contains a number of features, one of them named Flashblock. WebKit-based browsers under macOS, such as Apple's Safari, have ClickToFlash.[142]  In June 2015, Google announced that Chrome will "pause" advertisements and "non-central" Flash content by default.[143]

text: Firefox (from version 46) rewrites old Flash-only YouTube embed code into YouTube's modern embedded player that is capable of using either HTML5 or Flash.[144] Such embed code is used by non-YouTube sites to embed YouTube's videos, and can still be encountered, for example, on old blogs and forums.

text: Security[edit]

text: For many years Adobe Flash Player's security record[145] has led many security experts to recommend against installing the player, or to block Flash content.[146][147] The US-CERT has recommended blocking Flash,[148] and security researcher Charlie Miller recommended "not to install Flash";[149] however, for people still using Flash, Intego recommended that users get trusted updates "only directly from the vendor that publishes them."[150] As of February 12, 2015, Adobe Flash Player has over 400 CVE entries,[151] of which over 300 lead to arbitrary code execution, and past vulnerabilities have enabled spying via web cameras.[152][153][154][155] Security experts have long predicted the demise of Flash, saying that with the rise of HTML5 "...the need for browser plugins such as Flash is diminishing",[156] as only 7 to 10 percent of websites still use it.[157][158]

text: Active moves by third parties to limit the risk began with Steve Jobs in 2010 saying that Apple would not allow Flash on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad – citing abysmal security as one reason.[159] Flash often used the ability to dynamically change parts of the runtime on languages on OSX to improve their own performance, but caused general instability. In July 2015, a series of newly discovered vulnerabilities resulted in Facebook's chief security officer, Alex Stamos, issuing a call to Adobe to discontinue the software entirely[160] and the Mozilla Firefox web browser, Google Chrome and Apple Safari to blacklist all earlier versions of Flash Player.[161][162][163][164]

text: As a result, "Adobe has essentially stopped trying to do anything new and innovative with Flash."[158]

text: Flash cookies[edit]

text: Like the HTTP cookie, a flash cookie (also known as a “Local Shared Object”) can be used to save application data. Flash cookies are not shared across domains. An August 2009 study by the Ashkan Soltani and a team of researchers at UC Berkeley found that 50% of websites using Flash were also employing flash cookies, yet privacy policies rarely disclosed them, and user controls for privacy preferences were lacking.[165] Most browsers' cache and history suppress or delete functions did not affect Flash Player's writing Local Shared Objects to its own cache in version 10.2 and earlier, at which point the user community was much less aware of the existence and function of Flash cookies than HTTP cookies.[166] Thus, users with those versions, having deleted HTTP cookies and purged browser history files and caches, may believe that they have purged all tracking data from their computers when in fact Flash browsing history remains. Adobe's own Flash Website Storage Settings panel, a submenu of Adobe's Flash Settings Manager web application, and other editors and toolkits can manage settings for and delete Flash Local Shared Objects.[167]


document_title: And Then There Were None

question_text: where is the island in and then there were none

root

text: And Then There Were None

text: Premise[edit]

text: In the novel, a group of people are lured into coming to an island under different pretexts, e.g., offers of employment, to enjoy a late summer holiday, or to meet old friends. All have been complicit in the deaths of other human beings, but either escaped justice or committed an act that was not subject to legal sanction. The guests and two servants who are present are "charged" with their respective "crimes" by a gramophone recording after dinner the first night, and informed that they have been brought to the island to pay for their actions. They are the only people on the island, and cannot escape due to the distance from the mainland and the inclement weather, and gradually all ten are killed in turn, each in a manner that seems to parallel the deaths in the nursery rhyme. Nobody else seems to be left alive on the island by the time of the apparent last death. A confession, in the form of a postscript to the novel, unveils how the killings took place and who was responsible.

tag: p

text: Plot summary[edit]

text: On a hot, early August day sometime in the late 1930s, eight people arrive on a small, isolated island off the Devon coast of England. Each appears to have an invitation tailored to his or her personal circumstances, such as an offer of employment or an unexpected late summer holiday. They are met by Thomas and Ethel Rogers, the butler and cook-housekeeper, who state that their hosts, Mr Ulick Norman Owen and his wife Mrs Una Nancy Owen, whom they have not yet met in person, have not arrived, but left instructions, which strikes all the guests as odd.

text: A framed copy of a nursery rhyme, "Ten Little Niggers"[8] (called "Ten Little Indians" or "Ten Little Soldiers" in later editions), hangs in every guest's room, and ten figurines sit on the dining room table. After supper, a gramophone (or "phonograph") record is played; it contains a recording that describes each visitor in turn, accuses each of having committed murder but escaping justice, and then asks if any of "the accused" wishes to offer a defence. All but Anthony Marston and Philip Lombard deny the charges, and Miss Brent refuses to discuss the matter.

text: They discover that none of them actually knows the Owens and conclude that the name "U.N. Owen" is shorthand for "Unknown". In the aftermath of the recording, Marston finishes his drink and immediately dies from cyanide poisoning. The remaining guests notice that one of the ten figurines is now broken, and the nursery rhyme appears to reflect the manner of death ("One choked his little self and then there were nine").

text: The next morning, Mrs Rogers' corpse is found in her bed; she had died in her sleep from an overdose of chloral hydrate. By lunchtime, General MacArthur is found dead, from a heavy blow to his head. Two more figurines are found to be broken, and again the deaths parallel the rhyme. Miss Brent, who had refused to speak with the men present, relates the account of the gramophone charge against her to Vera Claythorne, who later tells the others.

text: A search for "Mr Owen" shows that nobody else is on the island except the remaining seven. The island is a "bare rock" with no hiding places, and no one could have arrived or left; thus, they uncomfortably conclude that any one of the seven remaining persons is the killer. Justice Wargrave leads the group in determining that as of yet, none of them can definitively be ruled out as the murderer. The next morning, Rogers is found dead while chopping wood, and after breakfast, Miss Brent is found dead in the kitchen, where she had been left alone after complaining of feeling unwell; she had been injected with potassium cyanide via a hypodermic needle.

text: Wargrave then suggests searching all the rooms, and any potentially dangerous items they can think of are locked up. Lombard's gun is missing from his room. When Vera goes upstairs to take a bath, she is shocked by the touch and smell of seaweed left hanging from the ceiling of her room and screams; the remaining guests rush upstairs to her room. Wargrave, however, is still downstairs. The others find him seated, immobile and crudely dressed up in the attire of a judge. Wargrave is examined briefly by Dr Armstrong and pronounced dead from a gunshot to the forehead.

text: That night, Lombard appears surprised when he finds his gun returned to his room. Blore catches a glimpse of someone leaving the house but loses the trail. He then discovers Armstrong is absent from his room, and the remaining three guests conclude that Armstrong must be the killer. Vera, Blore, and Lombard decide to stay together at all times. In the morning, they unsuccessfully attempt to signal SOS to the mainland from outside by using a mirror and sunlight. Blore then decides to return to the house for food by himself—the others are not hungry—and is killed by a heavy bear-shaped clock statue that is pushed from Vera's window sill, crushing his skull.

text: Vera and Lombard are now confident that Armstrong is the killer. However, shortly afterwards, the duo come upon Armstrong's body washed up on the beach, which they do not immediately recognize due to decomposition. They realize that Armstrong could not have killed Blore. Panicked, each concludes the other must be the killer, overlooking that neither had the opportunity as they were together on the beach and when they found Blore's body. Quickly regaining her composure, Vera suggests moving the doctor's body past the shore, but this is a pretext. She manages to lift Lombard's gun. When Lombard lunges at her to get it back, she shoots him dead.

text: She returns to the house in a shaken dreamlike state, relieved to be alive. She finds a noose and chair arranged in her room, and a strong smell of the sea. With visions of her former lover, Hugo, urging her on, in a post-traumatic state, she adjusts the noose and kicks the chair out from under her.

text: Two Scotland Yard officials are puzzled by the identity of U.N. Owen. Although they can ostensibly reconstruct the deaths from Marston to Wargrave with the help of the victims' diaries and a coroner's careful report, they are forced to conclude that "U.N. Owen" was one of the victims, but are unable to determine which one. They note that the chair on which Vera stood to hang herself had been set back upright, indicating that someone—presumably the killer—was still alive on the island after her suicide.

text: In a postscript, a fishing ship picks up a bottle inside its trawling nets; the bottle contains a written confession of the killings, which is then sent to Scotland Yard. It is not clear how long after the killings the bottle was discovered.

text: In the confession, Justice Wargrave writes that he has long wished to set an unsolvable puzzle of murder, but is morally limited to victims who are themselves guilty and deserving of such an end. He explains how he tricked the gullible Dr. Armstrong into helping him fake his own death under the pretext that it would supposedly give him the freedom to help the group identify the killer, and also explains that after Vera died, he replaced the chair in her room neatly against the wall. Finally, he reveals how he used the gun and some elastic to ensure his own death matched the account in the guests' diaries. Although he wished to create an unsolvable mystery, he acknowledges in the missive a "pitiful human" need for recognition, hence the confession.

text: He also describes how his first chronological victim was actually Isaac Morris, the sleazy lawyer and drugs trafficker who anonymously purchased the island and arranged the invitations on his behalf. Morris was poisoned before Wargrave departed for the island. Wargrave's intention is that when the police arrive they will find ten bodies, with evidence that someone had been alive after each death, but nobody else on the island, and no way to trace the killer through his invitations or preparations. He states that, although there are three clues that could guide the police to the correct killer, he is confident they will be unable to do so and that the mystery will remain unsolved until the confession is retrieved.

text: Current published version of the rhyme[edit]

text:
Ten little Soldier Boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Soldier Boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Soldier Boys travelling in Devon;
One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.[9]

Seven little Soldier Boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive;
A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Soldier Boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Soldier Boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two little Soldier Boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was one.[10]

One little Soldier Boy left all alone;
He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.[11]

text: Characters[edit]

text: The following details of the characters are based on the original novel. Backstories, backgrounds, and names vary with differing international adaptations, based on censorship, cultural norms, etc.

text:
Anthony James Marston, a handsome but amoral and irresponsible young man, killed two young children (John and Lucy Combes) while driving recklessly, for which he felt no real remorse and accepted no personal responsibility, complaining only that his driving licence had been suspended as a result. He was the first island victim, poisoned with potassium cyanide slipped into his drink while the guests were listening to the gramophone recording. ("One choked his little self ...")
Mrs Ethel Rogers, the cook/housekeeper and Thomas Rogers' wife, described as a pale and ghost-like woman who walks in mortal fear. She was dominated by her bullying husband, who coerced her into agreeing to withhold the medicine of a former employer (Miss Jennifer Brady, an elderly spinster) in order that they might collect an inheritance they knew she had left them in her will. Mrs Rogers was haunted by the crime for the rest of her life, and was the second victim, dying in her sleep from an overdose of chloral hydrate in her brandy. ("One overslept himself ...")
General John Gordon Macarthur, a retired World War I war hero, who sent his late wife's lover (a younger officer, Arthur Richmond) to his death by assigning him to a mission where it was practically guaranteed he would not survive. Leslie Macarthur had mistakenly put the wrong letters in the envelopes on one occasion when she wrote to both men at the same time. The general accepts that no one will leave the island alive, which he tells Vera Claythorne. Shortly thereafter, he is bludgeoned while left alone sitting along the shore. ("One said he'd stay there...")
Thomas Rogers, the butler and Ethel Rogers' husband. He dominated his weak-willed wife, and they killed their former elderly employer by withholding her medicine, causing the woman to die from heart failure, thus inheriting the money she bequeathed them in her will. Despite his wife's death, Rogers was still serving the others. In that capacity, he was killed when bludgeoned with an axe as he cut firewood in the woodshed. ("One chopped himself in halves ...")
Emily Caroline Brent, an elderly, religiously rigid, socially respectable spinster who accepted the vacation on Soldier Island largely due to financial constraints. Years earlier, she had dismissed her young maid, Beatrice Taylor, for becoming pregnant out of wedlock. Beatrice, who had already been rejected by her parents for the same reason, drowned herself, which Miss Brent considered an even worse sin. She refuses to discuss the matter with the gentlemen, telling them, "I have always acted in accordance with the dictates of my conscience. I have nothing with which to reproach myself." Later, she confides what happened regarding Beatrice Taylor to Vera Claythorne, who tells the others shortly before Miss Brent is found dead herself. She was sedated with chloral hydrate in her coffee, leaving her disorientated, before being injected in the neck with potassium cyanide while left alone in the kitchen, with one of Dr Armstrong's hypodermic syringes. The murderer also put a bee into the room. ("A bumblebee stung one...")
Dr Edward George Armstrong, a Harley Street doctor, responsible for the death of a patient, Louisa Mary Clees, after he operated on her while drunk many years earlier. Armstrong is asked by Justice Wargrave to help fake his death, on the pretext that this will leave the judge free to find the killer, but is fooled in doing so – while rendezvousing with the judge at night on a rocky cliff, the judge asks him if he sees a cave. When Armstrong looks, he is pushed by the other man into the sea, and is killed. ("A red herring swallowed one..."). His body goes missing for a while, leading the others to believe that he is the killer, but his corpse washes ashore at the end of the novel, sparking the final confrontation between Vera Claythorne and Philip Lombard in which the latter is killed.
William Henry Blore, a former police inspector and now a private investigator, was accused of falsifying his testimony in court for a bribe from a dangerous criminal gang, which resulted in an innocent man, James Landor, being convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Landor, who had a wife and young child, died shortly afterwards in prison. Using the alias "Davis" and claiming to have arrived from South Africa, as he was instructed to do, he is on the island for "security work". His true name is revealed on the gramophone recording. He denies the accusation against him from the gramophone recording, but later privately admits the truth to Lombard. He was crushed by a bear-shaped clock dropped from Vera's bedroom window onto the terrace below. ("A big bear hugged one...")
Philip Lombard, a soldier of fortune. Literally down to his last square meal, he comes to the island with a loaded revolver, as suggested by his invitation letter. Lombard is accused of causing the deaths of a number of East African tribesmen, after stealing their food and abandoning them to their deaths. He and Marston are the only guests to openly and immediately confirm that the accusations against them are true; neither feels any remorse. ("Story's quite true! I left 'em! Matter of self-preservation. We were lost in the bush. I and a couple of other fellows took what food there was and cleared out ... Not quite the act of a pukka sahib, I'm afraid. But self-preservation's a man's first duty. And natives don't mind dying, you know. They don't feel about it as Europeans do.") Lombard fulfilled the ninth referenced verse of the rhyme, shot to death on the beach by Vera, ("One got frizzled up ...") who believed him to be the murderer. Of all the "guests" he is the only one to theorize that "U.N. Owen" might be Wargrave, but the others reject this and it does him no good. He and Vera are the only guests not killed by Justice Wargrave. Technically he is the 8th person to die out of the ten guests.
Vera Elizabeth Claythorne, a cool, efficient, resourceful young woman who is on leave from her position as a sports mistress at a third-rate girls' school. She has largely worked at secretarial jobs ever since her job as a governess was ended by the death of her charge, Cyril Hamilton. Claythorne let the boy drown so his uncle Hugo Hamilton could inherit the family estate and marry her, but Hugo rejected her when he suspected her crime. In the penultimate scene of the novel, she manages to take Lombard's gun, and shoot him dead in what she believed was self-defence. She returns to the house, relieved she has survived. When she goes to her room, she finds a readied noose, complete with chair beneath it, suspended from a hook hanging from the ceiling. She, in what Wargrave, hidden from her sight, describes first hand as a post-traumatic state, sees and hears Hugo, her former lover, encouraging her. She adjusts the noose round her neck and kicks the chair away, fulfilling the rhyme's final verse ("One little Soldier Boy left all alone; He went and hanged himself and then there were none.")
Justice Lawrence John Wargrave, a retired judge, known as a "hanging judge" for liberally awarding the death penalty in murder cases. Wargrave is accused of influencing the jury to hand a guilty verdict to Edward Seton, a man many thought was innocent of his crime of killing an old woman, and sentencing him to death unfairly. However, as the two policemen discuss at Scotland Yard, new evidence after Seton's execution proved he was unmistakably guilty. He admits in his postscript that he has a lifelong hidden sadistic urge to cause death, but felt bound only to indulge it with guilty persons, and a lifelong wish to create a masterpiece of a mystery. Finding himself terminally ill, he creates a game in which, as island owner "U.N. Owen" (i.e., "Unknown"), he entices to an island various people who have been responsible for the deaths of other people, but escaped justice, through a third party agent, Isaac Morris, in order to be a murderer himself, and kill his "guests" in a way that would leave an almost-unsolvable mystery. After the deaths, he arranges the island so that each death appears to have a survivor. However out of what he admits is a "pitiful human need" for recognition, he also writes a confession, which he throws in the sea, and leaves to chance whether it will be found. His final act is to shoot himself in a way that matches the description of his death in some of the other guests' diaries, by using a rubber cord and handkerchief wrapped around the gun when he shoots himself in the head; the elastic will separate and attract no attention, and the gun and cloth will recoil a sufficient distance from him to avoid any suspicion of the true circumstances by the police.
Isaac Morris is an unethical lawyer hired by Wargrave to purchase the island (under the name "U.N. Owen"), arrange the gramophone recording, and make various necessary arrangements on his behalf, including gathering information on the near destitute Philip Lombard, to whom he gave some money to get by (with the promise of more to come) and recommended Lombard bring his gun to the island (a fateful proposition, without which events could not have developed as they did to make Wargrave's gambit successful). Morris's is actually the first death chronologically, as he died before the guests arrived on the island. Morris was responsible for the addiction and suicide of a young woman through his narcotics activities. The victim by chance was the daughter of a friend of Wargrave. A hypochondriac, he trusted "Mr Owen" sufficiently to accept the latter's lethal cocktail of pills, assured they would improve his health, although Wargrave would have had to get rid of him in any event.
Fred Narracott, the boatman who delivered the guests to the island. After doing so, he does not appear again in the story, although Inspector Maine notes it was Narracott who, sensing something seriously amiss, returned to the island as soon as the weather allowed, before he was scheduled to do, and found the bodies. Maine speculates that it was the normalcy and ordinariness of the guests that convinced Narracott to do so and ignore his orders to dismiss any signals requesting help.
Sir Thomas Legge and Inspector Maine, two Scotland Yard detectives who discuss the case in the epilogue. In their conversation, which takes place an unspecified amount of time after the events of the book (but before Wargrave's confession is found), they attempt to reason out the events of the case, but are dumbfounded and unable to solve the mystery. The name Legge is a symbolic name, because, in Italian, it means Law.

text: History of the publication's title[edit]

text: English-language versions[edit]

text: The novel was originally published in 1939 and early 1940 almost simultaneously, in the United Kingdom and the United States. In the UK it appeared under the title Ten Little Niggers, in book and newspaper serialized formats. The serialization was in 23 parts in the Daily Express from Tuesday 6 June to Saturday 1 July 1939. All of the instalments carried an illustration by "Prescott" with the first having an illustration of Burgh Island in Devon which inspired the setting of the story. The serialized version did not contain any chapter divisions.[12] The book retailed for seven shillings and six pence.

text: In the United States it was published under the title And Then There Were None, again in both book and serial formats. Both of the original US publications changed the title from that originally used in the UK, due to the offensiveness of the word in American culture, where it was more widely perceived as a racially loaded ethnic slur or insult compared to contemporary UK culture, and because of the pejorative connotations of the original blackface rhyme. The serialized version appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in seven parts from 20 May (Volume 211, Number 47) to 1 July 1939 (Volume 212, Number 1) with illustrations by Henry Raleigh, and the book was published in January 1940 by Dodd, Mead and Company for $2.[4][5][6]

text: In the original UK novel all references to "Indians" or "Soldiers" were originally "Nigger", including the island's name, the pivotal rhyme found by the visitors, and the ten figurines.[5] (In Chapter 7, Vera Claythorne becomes semi-hysterical at the mention by Miss Brent of "our black brothers", which is understandable only in the context of the original name.) The word "nigger" was already racially offensive in the United States by the start of the 20th century, and therefore the book's first US edition and first serialization changed the title to And Then There Were None and removed all references to the word from the book, as did the 1945 motion picture.[citation needed]

text: The book and its adaptations have since been released under various new names since the original publication, including Ten Little Indians (1946 play, Broadway performance and 1964 paperback book), Ten Little Soldiers and – the most widely used today – And Then There Were None.[citation needed] UK editions continued to use the work's original title until the 1980s; the first UK edition to use the alternative title And Then There Were None appeared in 1985 with a reprint of the 1963 Fontana Paperback.[13]

text:
Christie, Agatha (November 1939). Ten Little Niggers. London: Collins Crime Club. OCLC 152375426.  Hardback, 256 pp. (First edition.)
Christie, Agatha (January 1940). And Then There Were None. New York: Dodd, Mead. OCLC 1824276.  Hardback, 264 pp. (First US edition.)
Christie, Agatha (1944). And Then There Were None. New York: Pocket Books (Pocket number 261). Paperback, 173 pp.
Christie, Agatha (1947). Ten Little Niggers. London: Pan Books (Pan number 4). Paperback, 190 pp.
Christie, Agatha (1958). Ten Little Niggers. London: Penguin Books (Penguin number 1256). Paperback, 201 pp.
Christie, Agatha (1963). And Then There Were None. London: Fontana. OCLC 12503435.  Paperback, 190 pp. (The 1985 reprint was the first UK publication of the novel under the title And Then There Were None.)[13]
Christie, Agatha (1964). Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books. OCLC 29462459.  (First publication of novel as Ten Little Indians.)
Christie, Agatha (1964). And Then There Were None. New York: Washington Square Press. Paperback, teacher's edition.
Christie, Agatha (1977). Ten Little Niggers (Greenway ed.). London: Collins Crime Club. ISBN 0-00-231835-0.  Collected works, Hardback, 252 pp. (Except for reprints of the 1963 Fontana paperback, this was one of the last English-language publications of the novel under the title Ten Little Niggers.)[14]
Christie, Agatha (1980). The Mysterious Affair at Styles; Ten Little Niggers; Dumb Witness. Sydney: Lansdowne Press. ISBN 0-7018-1453-5.  (Late use of the original title in an Australian edition.)
Christie, Agatha (1986). Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-55222-8.  (Last publication of novel under the title Ten Little Indians.)

text: Foreign language versions[edit]

text: The original title (Ten Little Niggers) still survives in a few foreign-language versions of the novel, such as the Bulgarian title Десет малки негърчета, and was used in other languages for a time, for example in the Dutch publication until the 18th edition of 1994.[citation needed] The title Ten Little Negroes continues to be commonly used in foreign-language versions, for example in Spanish, Greek, Serbian, Romanian,[15] French[16] and Hungarian, as well as a 1987 Russian film adaptation Десять негритят (Desyat Negrityat). In 1999, the Slovak National Theatre staged the play under its original title but changed to A napokon nezostal už nik (And Then There Were None) mid-run.[17]

text:
Language
Title
English translation

Arabic
عشرة عبيد صغار (Eshrt eubayd sghar)
ثم لم يبق منهم أحد (thumm lm yabq minhum ahd)
جزيرة الموت (jazirat almwt)
عشرة زنوج صغار (eshrt zunuj saghar)
Ten Young Slaves
And Then There Were None
Isle of Death
Ten Little Negroes

Basque
Eta ez zen alerik ere geratu
And Then There Were None

Bengali
রইলো না আর কেউ (Ra'ilō nā āra kē'u)
And Then There Were None

Bosnian
Deset malih crnaca
Ten Little Negroes

Breton
Dek morian bihan
Ten Little Negroes

Bulgarian
Десет малки негърчета (Deset malki negŭrcheta)
Ten Little Negroes

Catalan
Deu negrets
Ten Little Negroes

Chinese
無人生還 (Wú rén shēng huán) 一個都不留 (Yī gè dōu bù liú)
No One Survived
None is Left

Croatian
Deset malih crnaca
Ten Little Negroes

Czech
Deset malých černoušků
Ten Little Negroes

Danish
En af os er morderen
One of Us is the Killer

Dutch
Tien kleine negertjes
En toen waren er nog maar…
Ten Little Negroes
And Then There Were Only…

Estonian
Kümme väikest neegrit (1994 edition)
Ja ei jäänud teda ka (2008 edition)
Ten Little Negroes
And Then There Were None

Finnish
Eikä yksikään pelastunut (1940, 2004)
Kymmenen pientä neekeripoikaa (1968)
And None Survived
Ten Little Negro Boys

French[16]
Dix Petits Nègres
Ten Little Negroes

Galician
Dez negriños
Ten Little Negroes

Georgian
და აღარავინ დარჩა
And Then There Were None

German
Das letzte Wochenende (1944)
Zehn kleine Negerlein (1982)
Und dann gab's keines mehr (2003)
Last Weekend
Ten Little Negroes
And Then There Were None

Greek
Δέκα μικροί νέγροι (Déka mikrí négri)
Ten Little Negroes

Hebrew
עשרה כושים קטנים (asara kushim ktanim)
Ten Little Negroes

Hungarian
Tíz kicsi néger
Ten Little Negroes

Icelandic
Tíu litlir negrastrákar
Ten Little Negro Boys

Indonesian
Sepuluh Anak Negro
Lalu Semuanya Lenyap
Ten Little Negroes
And Then There Were None

Italian
Dieci piccoli indiani
E non ne rimase nessuno
Ten Little Indians
And Then There Were None

Japanese
そして誰もいなくなった (Soshite dare mo i naku natta)
And Then There Were None

Kannada
ಗಾಜಿನ ಮನೆ (Gaajina Mane)
The Glass House

Korean
그리고 아무도 없었다 (Geurigo amudo eobs-eossda)
And Then There Were None

Latvian
Desmit mazi nēģerēni
Ten Little Negroes

Macedonian
Десетте мали црнци (Desette mali crnci)
Ten Little Negroes

Malayalam
ഒടുവില് ആരും അവശേഷിച്ചില്ല
(Oduvil Aarum Avasheshichilla)
No One Survived in the End

Malaysian
Sepuluh Budak Hitam
Ten Black Children

Norwegian
Ti små negerbarn
Og dermed var det ingen
Ten Little Negro Children
And Then There Were None

Persian
ده بچه زنگی
Ten Negro Children

Polish
Dziesięciu murzynków
I nie było już nikogo
Ten Little Negroes
And Then There Were None

Portuguese (European)
Convite para a Morte
As Dez Figuras Negras
Invitation to Death
Ten Black Figures

Portuguese (Brazilian)
E Não Sobrou Nenhum
O Caso dos Dez Negrinhos
O Vingador Invisível
And Then There Were None
The Case of the Ten Little Negroes
The Invisible Avenger

Romanian[15]
Zece negri mititei
Ten Little Negroes

Russian
Десять негритят (Desyat' negrityat)
Ten Little Negroes

Serbian
Десет малих црнаца (Deset malih crnaca)
Ten Little Negroes

Slovak
A neostal ani jeden
And Then There Were None

Slovenian
Deset zamorčkov (1967)
In potem ni bilo nikogar več (2006)
Bilo jih je deset (2016)
Ten Little Negroes
And Then There Were None
There Were Ten of Them

Spanish[citation needed]
Y no quedó ninguno
Diez Negritos
And No One Remained
Ten Little Negroes

Swedish
Tio små negerpojkar (1940)
Och så var de bara en (2008)
Ten Little Negro Boys
And Then They Were Only One

Tamil
பிறகு அங்கு ஒருவர் கூட இல்லை
(Piragu angu oruvar kooda illai)
And Then There Were None

Telugu
మరియు అప్పుడు ఎవరూ దేర్ వర్
And Then There Were None

Thai
ฆาตกรรมยกเกาะ (RTGS: Khattakam yok ko)
Murders on the Island

Turkish
On Küçük Zenci
Ten Little Negroes

Ukrainian
І не лишилось жодного
And Then There Were None

Urdu
اور پھر کوئی بی نہیں رہا!
And Then There Were None

Vietnamese
Mười người da đen nhỏ
Ten Little Black People

text: Literary significance and reception[edit]

text: And Then There Were None is one of Agatha Christie's best-known mysteries, widely considered her masterpiece and described by her as the most difficult of her books to have written.[2] Writing for The Times Literary Supplement of 11 November 1939, Maurice Percy Ashley stated, "If her latest story has scarcely any detection in it there is no scarcity of murders... There is a certain feeling of monotony inescapable in the regularity of the deaths which is better suited to a serialized newspaper story than a full-length novel. Yet there is an ingenious problem to solve in naming the murderer", he continued. "It will be an extremely astute reader who guesses correctly."[18]

text: Many other reviews were also complimentary; in The New York Times Book Review (25 February 1940), Isaac Anderson detailed the set-up of the plot up to the point where "the voice" accuses the ten "guests" of their past crimes or sins, which have all resulted in the deaths of other human beings, and then said, "When you read what happens after that you will not believe it, but you will keep on reading, and as one incredible event is followed by another even more incredible you will still keep on reading. The whole thing is utterly impossible and utterly fascinating. It is the most baffling mystery that Agatha Christie has ever written, and if any other writer has ever surpassed it for sheer puzzlement the name escapes our memory. We are referring, of course, to mysteries that have logical explanations, as this one has. It is a tall story, to be sure, but it could have happened."[19]

text: Such was the quality of Christie's work on this book that many compared it to her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). For instance, an unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of 16 March 1940 said, "Others have written better mysteries than Agatha Christie, but no one can touch her for ingenious plot and surprise ending. With And Then There Were None... she is at her most ingenious and most surprising... is, indeed, considerably above the standard of her last few works and close to the Roger Ackroyd level."[20]

text: Other critics laud the use of plot twists and surprise endings. Maurice Richardson wrote a rhapsodic review in The Observer's issue of 5 November 1939 which began, "No wonder Agatha Christie's latest has sent her publishers into a vatic trance. We will refrain, however, from any invidious comparisons with Roger Ackroyd and be content with saying that Ten Little Niggers is one of the very best, most genuinely bewildering Christies yet written. We will also have to refrain from reviewing it thoroughly, as it is so full of shocks that even the mildest revelation would spoil some surprise from somebody, and I am sure that you would rather have your entertainment kept fresh than criticism pure." After stating the set-up of the plot, Richardson concluded, "Story telling and characterisation are right at the top of Mrs Christie's baleful form. Her plot may be highly artificial, but it is neat, brilliantly cunning, soundly constructed, and free from any of those red-herring false trails which sometimes disfigure her work."[3]

text: Robert Barnard, a recent critic, concurred with the reviews, describing the book as "Suspenseful and menacing detective-story-cum-thriller. The closed setting with the succession of deaths is here taken to its logical conclusion, and the dangers of ludicrousness and sheer reader-disbelief are skillfully avoided. Probably the best-known Christie, and justifiably among the most popular."[21]

text: The original title of the mystery (Ten Little Niggers) has long been abandoned as offensive in English-speaking countries and a number of others. Some critics have opined that Christie's original title and the setting on "Nigger Island" (later changed to "Indian Island" and "Soldier Island", variously) may be integral to the work. These aspects of the novel, argues Alison Light, "could be relied upon automatically to conjure up a thrilling 'otherness', a place where revelations about the 'dark side' of the English would be appropriate."[22] Unlike novels such as Heart of Darkness, "Christie's location is both more domesticated and privatized, taking for granted the construction of racial fears woven into psychic life as early as the nursery. If her story suggests how easy it is to play upon such fears, it is also a reminder of how intimately tied they are to sources of pleasure and enjoyment."[22]

text: In the "Binge!" article of Entertainment Weekly Issue #1343-44 (26 December 2014–3 January 2015), the writers picked And Then There Were None as an "EW favorite" on the list of the "Nine Great Christie Novels".[23]

text: Adaptations[edit]

text: And Then There Were None has had more adaptations than any other single work by Agatha Christie. Many adaptations incorporate changes to the story, such as using Christie's alternative ending from her 1943 stage play or changing the setting to locations other than an island.

text: Film[edit]

text: There have been numerous film adaptations of the novel, some comedic. Examples include:

text:
And Then There Were None (1945 film), René Clair's cinema adaptation, was a successful US production
Ten Little Indians (1965 film), is George Pollock's cinema adaptation
Gumnaam (1965, translation: Unknown or Anonymous) is an Indian suspense thriller film adaptation
Nadu Iravil (1970, translation: In the middle of the night), a Tamil adaptation directed by Sundaram Balachander[24]
And Then There Were None (1974 film), the first English-language colour version, directed by Peter Collinson
Desyat' Negrityat (1987, Десять негритят, Eng: "Ten Little Negroes") Stanislav Govorukhin's Russian adaptation keeps intact Christie's grim storyline and ending.
Ten Little Indians, a 1989 American version directed by Alan Birkinshaw
Aduthathu (2012) is a Tamil adaptation[25]
Aatagara (2015) is a Kannada film adaptation[26]

text: Radio[edit]

text:
The BBC broadcast "Ten Little Niggers" (1947), adapted by Ayton Whitaker, first aired as a Monday Matinee on the BBC Home Service on 27 December 1947 and as Saturday Night Theatre on the BBC Light Programme on 29 December.[27]
On 13 November 2010, as part of its Saturday Play series, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 90-minute adaptation written by Joy Wilkinson. The production was directed by Mary Peate and featured, among others, Geoffrey Whitehead as Justice Wargrave, Lyndsey Marshal as Vera Claythorne, Alex Wyndham as Philip Lombard, John Rowe as Dr. Armstrong, and Joanna Monro as Emily Brent. In this production, which is extremely faithful to the novel, the rhyme is "Ten Little Soldier Boys".[citation needed]

text: Stage[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text:
And Then There Were None (1943 play) is Christie's adaptation of the story for the stage. She and the producers agreed that audiences might not flock to a tale with such a grim ending as the novel, nor would it work well dramatically as there would be no one left to tell the story. Thus, she reworked the ending for Lombard and Vera to be innocent of the crimes of which they were accused, survive, and fall in love with each other. Some of the names were also changed, e.g., General Macarthur became General McKenzie (possibly due to the real-life General Douglas MacArthur's then playing a prominent role in the ongoing World War II[citation needed]).
And Then There Were None (1944 play), Dundee Repertory Theatre Company was given special permission to restore the original ending of the novel. The company first performed a stage adaptation of the novel in 1944 under its original title.[28]
And Then There Were None (2005 play), On 14 October 2005, a new version of the play, written by Kevin Elyot and directed by Steven Pimlott, opened at the Gielgud Theatre in London. For this version, Elyot returned to the original story, restoring the nihilism of the original.[citation needed]

text: Television[edit]

text: Several variations of the original novel were adapted for television, three of which were British adaptations. The first of these, in 1949, was produced by the BBC[29]. The second was produced in 1959[30], by ITV. Both of those productions aired with Christie's original title. The third and most recent British adaptation aired as And Then There Were None on BBC One in December 2015, as a mini-series produced in cooperation with Acorn Media and Agatha Christie Productions. The 2015 production adhered more closely to the original plot, though there were several differences, and was the first English language film adaptation to feature an ending similar to that of the novel.[31]

text: On 25 and 26 March, 2017 TV Asahi in Japan aired そして誰もいなくなった (Soshite daremo inakunatta), a Japanese language adaptation by Nagasaka Shukei (長坂秀佳) of the original story set in modern times.[32][33]

text: Other media[edit]

text: The novel has been the inspiration for several video games. For the Apple II, Online Systems released the game Mystery House in 1980. On the PC, The Adventure Company released the video game Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None in 2005, the first in a series of PC games based on Christie novels. In February 2008, it was ported to the Wii console. The identity of the murderer is not that of the killer in the original book. The game player assumes the role of Patrick Naracott (brother of Fred Naracott, who is involved in a newly created subplot), who is stranded with the others when his boat is scuttled. This allows for alternate, more successful endings in which Naracott survives and is able to prevent the murders of the innocent Lombard and Claythorne. All endings depart markedly from the novel and previous adaptations in that the killer and motives are different.[citation needed]

text: And Then There Were None was released by HarperCollins as a graphic novel adaptation on 30 April 2009, adapted by François Rivière and illustrated by Frank Leclercq.[2]

text: Peká Editorial released a board game based on the book, created by Judit Hurtado and Fernando Chavarría, and illustrated by Esperanza Peinado.[34]

text: Timeline of adaptations[edit]

text:
type
Title
Year
Notes

Film
And Then There Were None
1945
American film and first cinema adaptation. Produced & directed by René Clair.

TV
Ten Little Niggers
1949
BBC television production (IMDb)

TV
Ten Little Niggers
1959
ITV television production (IMDb)

TV
Ten Little Indians
1959
NBC television production (IMDb)

Film
Ten Little Indians
1965
British film and second cinema adaptation. Directed by George Pollock and produced by Harry Alan Towers; Pollock had previously handled four Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford. Set in a mountain retreat in Austria.

Film (loosely based)
Gumnaam
1965
Uncredited Hindi film adaptation, which adds the characteristic "Bollywood" elements of comedy, music and dance to Christie's plot.[citation needed]

TV
Zehn kleine Negerlein
1969
West German television production (IMDb)

Film
And Then There Were None
1974
English language film by Peter Collinson and produced by Harry Alan Towers. First English-language color film version of the novel, based on a screenplay by Towers (writing as "Peter Welbeck"), who co-wrote the screenplay for the 1965 film. Set at a grand hotel in the Iranian desert.

TV
Ten Little Slaves (Achra Abid Zghar)
1974
Télé Liban TV series directed by Jean Fayyad, TV Adaptation by Latifeh Moultaka. (Facebook Page)

Film
Desyat' negrityat
Десять негритят
("Ten Little Negroes")
1987
Russian film version produced/directed by Stanislav Govorukhin, notable for being the first cinema adaptation to keep the novel's original plot and grim ending.

Film
Ten Little Indians
1989
British film, produced by Harry Towers and directed by Alan Birkinshaw, set on safari in the African savannah.

TV
Ten Little Slaves (Achra Abid Zghar)
2014
MTV Lebanon television production (MTV)

TV
And Then There Were None
2015
BBC One miniseries broadcast on three consecutive nights, directed by Craig Viveiros and adapted by Sarah Phelps. Similar to book, although not identical, with changes to backstories and actual murders on the island.

TV
Soshite Daremo Inakunatta
2017
Japanese TV Asahi miniseries broadcast on two consecutive nights, directed by Seiji Izumi and adapted by Hideka Nagasaka. (TV Asahi)

text: Parodies, references and related works[edit]

text: In 1930, The Ninth Guest by Owen Davis, premiered on Broadway. Its plot (and that of the 1934 film based on the play) strongly matches that of Christie's novel, including a recorded voice announcing to the invitees that their sins will be visited upon them by death. Davis's play was based on the novel The Invisible Host, by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning (also 1930), both of which predated Christie's novel by nine years.[35]

text: The 1933 K.B.S. Productions Sherlock Holmes film, A Study in Scarlet, predates the publication of Ten Little Indians and follows a strikingly similar plot;[36] it includes a scene where Holmes is shown a card with the hint: "Six little Indians ....bee stung one and then there were five"; the film predates the novel by six years. Though it is a Sherlock Holmes movie, the movie bears no resemblance to Arthur Conan Doyle's original story of the same name. In this case, the rhyme refers to "Ten Little Fat Boys". The author of the movie's screenplay, Robert Florey, "doubted that [Christie] had seen A Study in Scarlet, but he regarded it as a compliment if it had helped inspire her".[37]

text: Several parodies have been made. As early as autumn 1942, "World's Finest Comics" (#7, Fall Issue) had a Superman story by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster called "The Eight Doomed Men" which used Christie's basic structure and even borrowed a number of her victim's backgrounds, although Superman intervened to rescue half of the intended victims and the killer's motivation was changed to specific revenge. Siegel and Shuster anticipated the 1965 film by moving the locale to a mountain cabin and tossed in a Zeppelin-like dirigible – one location not yet used in adaptations of the story.

text: Another parody, the 1976 Broadway musical Something's Afoot, stars Tessie O'Shea as a female sleuth resembling Miss Marple. Something's Afoot takes place in a remote English estate, where six guests have been invited for the weekend. The guests, as well as three servants and a young man who claims to have wandered innocently onto the estate, are then murdered one by one, several in full view of the audience, with the murderer's surprise identity revealed at the end. For an encore, the murdered cast members perform a song, "I Owe It All to Agatha Christie".[citation needed]

text: In the 1967 The Avengers episode "The Superlative Seven"[38] John Steed is invited to a costume party aboard a chartered aeroplane. The aeroplane is being flown by remote control. Steed and the six other fancy-dressed guests, who are specialists in various combat styles, eventually land on a deserted island where they are informed that one of them is a trained assassin trying to kill them all. When the first murder is committed, Steed observes "Looks as though his back was broken". To which an off-screen protagonist responds, over a speaker, "Quite right, Mr Steed. And then there were six".[39] CSI:Crime Scene Investigation based an episode of the show's second season under the same name focusing on a gang of armed robbers stealing from casinos outside the Las Vegas metropolitan area with each criminal killing a member of the gang to keep more of the proceeds. The animated US sitcom Family Guy loosely parodied the novel in the 2010 episode And Then There Were Fewer in which a number of previously regular characters were killed off.

text: The 1998 anime film Case Closed: The Fourteenth Target is a combination of this story, with intended victims invited to a secluded island and the murderer hiding amongst them, and Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The A.B.C. Murders.

text: The sixth game of the Touhou Project series Embodiment of Scarlet Devil contains references to the Christie novel in the Extra boss, such as the title of the music being played called "U.N Owen Was Her?", an attack named "And Then There Were None" and also dialogues quoting the book.

text: The season 2 finale of the Australian TV show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries ("Murder under the Mistletoe", 2013) mirrors the plot of Christie's novel. Guests stranded in a secluded mansion are murdered one by one according to the circumstances described in the "12 Days of Christmas." Like in the Christie novel, the guests soon realize that the murderer must be among them, but the culprit escapes detection by means of a bluff involving one of the corpses. The episode follows the 1965 film Ten Little Indians in re-imagining the island as a snowed-in inaccessible chalet.

text: In Anthony Horowitz's detective series, The Diamond Brothers, the case I Know What You Did Last Wednesday pays homage to And Then There Were None; protagonist Nick Diamond accompanies his brother Tim to a school reunion on a lonely island where the various guests start dying in a manner that reflects back to a subject that they came first in at school (the person who came first in chemistry is poisoned, the one who came first in geography is crushed by a globe, etc.), with the killer revealed at the conclusion to be a former schoolfriend who came second in everything.

text: Sierra's Laura Bow adventure game has a similar plot, inspired by the novel, where some (although innocent) people are murdered by a serial killer who is also found dead before their true identity is revealed.


document_title: Little Boy Blue (TV series)

question_text: who played the detective in little boy blue

text: Little Boy Blue (TV series)

text: Cast[edit]

text:
Stephen Graham – Detective Superintendent Dave Kelly
Sinead Keenan – Melanie Jones
Brían F. O'Byrne – Steve Jones
Faye McKeever – Claire Olssen
Sonny Beyga – Rhys Jones
Matthew Roberts – Owen Jones
Stephen Walters – DCI Mark Guinness
Christine Tremarco – Marie Thompson
Sara Powell – Assistant Chief Constable Pat Gallan
Michael Moran – Kevin Moody
Nathan Clark Smith – Jordan Olssen
James Nelson-Joyce – James Yates
Paddy Rowan – Sean Mercer
Jack McMullen – Dean Kelly

text: Production[edit]

text: Stephen Graham was cast as Detective Superintendent Dave Kelly and Sinead Keenan and Brían F. O'Byrne were cast as Melanie and Steve Jones, respectively in a new four-part drama titled Little Boy Blue.[5] On 18 April 2017, it was confirmed that the programme would begin its broadcasting on 24 April 2017 on a weekly basis, concluding on 15 May.[6]

text: Episodes[edit]

text: Little Boy Blue aired in four sixty-minute episodes.[3] Whilst filming took place in Liverpool, the murder scene itself was filmed outside Liverpool as a sign of respect for his parents.[7] However locations used in Liverpool include the Anglican Cathedral and Liverpool Crown Court.[7]

text:
No.
Title
Directed by[2]
Written by[1]
Original air date
Viewers
(millions)

1
"Episode One"
Paul Whittington
Jeff Pope
24 April 2017
8.12

When eleven-year-old schoolboy Rhys Jones is brutally shot dead walking home from football practice, Detective Superintendent Dave Kelly (Stephen Graham) is charged with bringing his teenage killer to justice. His identity is well known, but finding the evidence to charge him proves to be a far more difficult challenge.

2
"Episode Two"
Paul Whittington
Jeff Pope
1 May 2017
7.88

As Rhys Jones is laid to rest, a police raid at the home of Kevin Moody (Michael Moran) leads to the recovery of the gun used in his murder. Moody must choose between being labelled a "grass" and risking retribution, or speaking the truth to clear his name. Unexpectedly, a forensic examination of the gun leaves the entire investigation hanging in the balance.

3
"Episode Three"
Paul Whittington
Jeff Pope
8 May 2017
7.99

When potential witness Claire Olssen is intimidated into changing her statement, the investigation team look for other ways to reinforce their case. As Steve returns to work, Kelly is offered a deal that tests his resolve.

4
"Episode Four"
Paul Whittington
Jeff Pope
15 May 2017
8.25

Mercer and his associates are tried for their roles in Rhys's murder. The verdict fails to bring closure for Melanie (Sinead Keenan) and Steve (Brían F. O'Byrne) as the fractures in their relationship come to a head. An unexpected setback leaves Kelly with a tough decision to make.