2004 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1940 mystery,
in five 30-minute episodes. Poirot leaves his dentist, passing a lady
who loses the buckle of her shoe while getting out of a taxi. Later,
it turns out that the dentist is dead. Suicide? Of course not.
Yes, all right, the story is a bit forced to fit the nursery
rhyme, but this is a reasonably solid Christie, the first one in which
she allowed the gloom of the early days of the war to be reflected in
the book. All right, her politics were not sophisticated, but nor were
many other people's, and she does resist the urge to propaganda.
As an audio production, it's the usual workmanlike Bakewell job, not
quite a direct translation but pretty close. John Moffatt can do the
Poirot Voice in his sleep, and sometimes seems to be. Philip Jackson
makes a creditable Chief Inspector Japp, but this isn't really a story
of interesting characters, and the rest of the cast don't have much to
work with.
On the other hand, even if they don't get a chance to shine, the
direction (by Enyd Williams as usual) is solid, and there's even
something of a sense of place in the ambient noises. Not one to love,
I think, but a reasonable version in this format.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.