I’ll admit that I’ve read very little Agatha Christie, and so I haven’t watched too much Poirot—Marple either, for that matter. Just the odd episode here and there. But both shows are a bit like the U.K. equivalent of Law & Order, in that nearly every British actor has appeared in at least one episode. Way back when I was doing my pre-Twelve Peter Capaldi reviews, I caught an episode he was in, and here, we get an appearance from Christopher Eccleston.
What begins as a routine trip to the dentist for Poirot ends—as you can imagine—in death, when the dentist is later discovered with an apparently self-inflicted fatal shot to the head. But Poirot suspects murder, not suicide, and he joins the case, examining the dentist’s other patients that day as possible suspects. However, as further bodies turn up, Poirot realizes this case is bigger than he initially thought.
While the Poirot story Capaldi appeared in, “Wasps’ Nest,” was pretty compact, this mystery has a lot of moving parts. I’ll confess that I didn’t always stay ahead of the expanding collection of suspects and clues. That said, it’s an interesting yarn and draws in plenty of flashes of intrigue: a mysterious connection on a ship from India, a well-traveled actress, a body of uncertain identification, and a young man with communist leanings, just to hit the highlights. And things do come together pretty well in the end, as could be expected.
Naturally, we’re led by David Suchet as Poirot. Like I said, I’ve only read a couple of Poirot’s stories, but the few episodes I’ve seen are enough to endear me to the Belgian detective, and to Suchet’s softspoken performance. He’s well-balanced by Philip Jackson’s more rough-hewn CI Japp.
Eccleston plays Frank Carter, a character who’s mentioned multiple times before we properly meet him onscreen. In a mystery, that usually portends someone who’s at least a person of interest, and while Eccleston’s overall screentime in the feature-length episode isn’t substantial, most of his scenes offer up some good intrigue and/or chances to emote. Frank is the possibly untrustworthy boyfriend of Gladys, the dentist’s secretary. It comes out early on that the dentist didn’t like Frank or his influence on Gladys, but whether or not that equals motive is what Poirot has to figure out.
This is a brief but nice performance. Eccleston is fairly understated here, but he plays Frank with a bit of an edge and an attitude—just uncooperative enough, in other words, to make you wonder whether he’s the culprit. It takes the episode a while to get to his first meaty appearance, but he has some better scenes in the second half of the story.
Accent Watch
Sounds like London to me.
Recommend?
In General – If you like whodunits and British TV, sure. This is a respectable adaptation of an entertaining story.
Christopher Eccleston – Maybe. It’s interesting to see such an early performance from Eccleston (this is only his seventh credit on IMDb,) and he does well with it, but it’s a relatively lengthy mystery and his part isn’t huge.
Warnings
Violence, death, smoking, suggestiveness, and thematic elements.
