RogerBW's Blog

After the Funeral 13 July 2023

1999 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1954 mystery, in one 90-minute episode. Richard Abernethie dies; his sister Cora claims that he's been murdered, and by the next day has unambiguously been murdered herself.

This is one of Christie's post-war depressive books, and it would take a lot to make it fun. Alas, I found this a very muddy production: the predominantly female cast all sound quite like each other, and most of the characters are self-interestedly nasty, with even the one sympathetic one too often blending into the crowd of greedy and thoughtless unpleasantness. John Baddeley is always solid, but has a fairly small role as Inspector Morton.

John Moffatt slips easily into the Poirot costume and does his best to make it all come together, but I ended up enjoying this rather less than most of the Bakewell adaptations.

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