The ABC Murders.

A couple of years ago, this being twenty twenty one for all you futurists, in the Year of our Lord Twenty Nineteen (Well, somebodies Lord, I suppose.) the BBC broadcast, over three nights, an adaption of Agatha Christie's ABC Murders. It is one of Agatha Christie's best known tales, certainly one of her cleverest. the wonderful David Suchet series had in fact done a rather smashing adaption of it. Well, that is a given, such was the care devoted to that series version of Hercule Poirot's cases. With the memory of that version still fairly fresh in my mind I could not help but wonder where this version had to go and the answer to that was a very dark place indeed. 

                  If David Suchet's Poirot had a cosy familiarity to it, with its meticulous eye for detail, from it's tea rooms to its art deco factories and almost Germanic expressionist swinging jazz stylee. This version leans more towards the crumbling labyrinthine decay of Delicatessan or Brazil ( The movie by Terry Gilliam not the country.) The back streets of London seem diseased, its inhabitants racked with some degenerative condition, physically and morally. It is a frightening place. And there is one scene in it which 

                It is in this familiar yet strange London that the brilliant Poirot finds himself alone ,seemingly without a friend in this world, no Inspector Japp, no Ms Lemon and no Captain Hastings. A refugee fleeing some terrible past ,he finds the same demons that tore his homeland apart gaining a foothold in this place he ran to. Hercule Poirot walks like his feet hurt, like some fallen angel unused to stepping on an Earthy plain. As he gets drawn into the ABC Murders affair he gets a hostile reception from the formerly grateful regular police, who are openly scornful of his efforts to unravel the mystery of this series of brutal killings. They mock his past murder mystery dinner parties he participated in with the hoi-poloi. Urging him to leave the real policing to them. and it is the present day mortal condition of one of his former clients who provides one of the most genuinely touching moments in the production as she begs Poirot to return them to their youth and former state of grace, "When we were beautiful..." Alas, the years have moved on and the years have not been kind.

               The ABC Murders suggests an origin story for Hercule Poirot that Agatha Christie did not create. Not a flash back to the night he was conceived by his parents, rather the starting point for the evolution for the character as we believe we know him. It is daring in that regard and all the more beautiful for taking this courageous step. i imagine it did not sit well with many of Agatha Christie devotees but the iconic figure that is Poirot is big and strong enough to take the strain of a little re-imagining (Ugh, sorry about that...hideous word.)

              A superb production.