There’s also a droll turn by Paul Whitehouse as the landlord of the Angler’s Arms (a nod to Whitehouse’s double act with Bob Mortimer in Gone Fishing), while Conleth Hill makes an all too brief appearance as Dr Alwyn Thomas, a keen golfer despite his artificial leg. Laurie’s undoubted cachet has enabled him to call in a few favours, with Jim Broadbent and Emma Thompson popping in for a couple of breezy cameos as Lord and Lady Marcham ( pictured below, Laurie on set with Broadbent, Thompson and Lucy Boynton). As a result the show feels spry and wry as it wends its way to a conclusion, finding room to enjoy the eccentricities and peccadilloes of its cast along the way. The plot is a twisty, slippery thing involving murder, deception, various misleading identities and the forgery of a wealthy man’s will, but Laurie pays as much attention to characterisation and dialogue as he does to the mere mechanics of the plot. However, Christie completists will doubtless already know that a previous ITV version of the story from 2011 converted it into a vehicle for Julia McKenzie’s Marple.
Wisely, he has steered clear of the well-worked territory of Poirot and Miss Marple, and instead has adapted a Christie novel from 1934 which introduces us to a pair of amateur sleuths, Bobby Jones and Lady Francis Derwent (familiarly known as Frankie).
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