Another Christmas, another Sarah Phelps adaptation of an Agatha Christie story and yup, it seems like it's another Marmite affair for audiences.

Phelps has adapted four Christie novels for the BBC now - And Then There Were None in 2015, Witness for the Prosecution a year later, and Ordeal By Innocence, the latter due at Christmas '17 but rescheduled for 2018 following Christian Cooke replacing original actor Ed Westwick when the latter was fighting allegations of sexual assault - and each of them have moved away from the source material, depicting much darker mysteries filled with sex, violence and swearing. It's for that very reason that many Christie fans are up in arms with Phelps, but I personally prefer to…

I must admit that I've never been much of a fan of Hercule Poirot, either in Agatha Christie's books or the various television and cinematic adaptations of her work. Poirot always seems to be played by an Englishman who adds a touch of an accent to make us think he's really Belgian, and although he's almost as popular as chocolate, I've struggled to be enamoured by any of the host of incarnations of the famous detective. From Albert Finney to Peter Ustinov, David Suchet to Kenneth Branagh, there's been the odd actor who's managed to entice me towards Christie's sleuth, with Ustinov arguably my favourite so far. Suchet made the character his own during a long running stint on television,…

A radical reinterpretation of Hercule Poirot, both of his backstory and the classic image we have of him (whether the rather jolly, figure embodied by Peter Ustinov or the precise and mannered portrayal by David Suchet). And you know what, this works and a lot of that is down to John Malkovich's take on the detective. There is a freedom in not having to deal with the manicured moustaches or the catchphrases ("little grey cells") and instead focus on the man and the history that informs him. He is still Poirot, who can be vain, but also empathetic, and is definitely the most intelligent man in the room. The other highlight in this adaptation is Eamon Farren as Alexander Bonaparte…

Hercule Poirot is back!

But wait....who is this guy?..he must be a Poirot from an alternate universe.

No, but as adapted for the BBC by Sarah Phelps, this is a moody remake of the 1992 original. Say goodbye to the cozy murder vibes...dark and gritty is the order of the day here.

An older and world-weary Poirot (John Malkovich) is drawn back into action. Apparently, Poirot has been retired for some years. Gone are the colleagues who appreciated him. The world has moved on, as it does with all of us who step back and make the mistake of growing old.

Further adding to Poirot's woes is a 1933 England gripped in the throes of xenophobia and nationalism. Poirot's continental…

It’s a stretch to invoke Agatha Christie’s name in the title of this miniseries. To be clear, John Malkovich is a topnotch actor and he does a characteristically great job playing an extraordinarily skilled, but broken professional, whose star has faded and who can’t even avoid getting spat on while walking down the street in virulently xenophobic 1930s England. He is decidedly not Hercule Poirot though. For this new, three-part BBC adaptation available on Amazon Prime, the character was radically reinvented to the point of unrecognizability. The flamboyant, self-obsessed and theatrical detective with the elaborate mustache is conspicuous only by absence. This unprecedented version of the most prolific literary sleuth of the 20th century is drained and humbled by his…

Sophie Hannah ya ha escrito tres novelas de Hercule Poirot de lo más interesante. Su aproximación es respetuosa pero al mismo tiempo se permite crear nuevos personajes secundarios y mostrar una visión algo crítica de la sociedad británica de los años 20, con su clasismo y su machismo.
Esta miniserie tiene algo de eso. Poirot es un personaje bastante icónico y eso implica que puede jugarse con él, como con Sherlock Holmes (que es aún más icónico), y sacarlo de la zona de confort. De hecho, la película que adaptaba esta novela era en plan comedia y con Tony Randall de Poirot...
Así, en esta nueva adaptación para la BBC también nos encontramos con muchas libertades y muchos elementos que…

For crying out loud! This is the fourth time that screenwriter Phelps has punkily disregarded the tone and tenor of Christie - “I don’t give a bollocks about people saying it has to be pure” [with reference to the previous Ordeal by Innocence - an apt title which also applies here]. 

By going out of their way not to care about being ‘pure’ these adaptations trample the spirit and function of the novels, determined as they are to lard in spurious schisms of sex, violence, swearing, drug-taking and other intrusions - ‘lets reveal the dark underside of Christie’ no doubt an injunction during the production meetings. 

And so it is that this time we have crass parallels between 1930s fascism…

Binged this bad boy this morning and just wrapped up the final part now. I skipped/missed last year's BBC Christie adaptation due to the re-filming and tainted image. So I was over the moon when I learned that this year would be the legendary detective's time to shine. Malkovich's take on Poirot blew my expectations out of the water (even if he did sound exactly like how he does in Johnny English...) and the creative decision to have a ageing version of the character with a past shrouded in mystery was a smart move and makes it stand out from the other portrayals of the character prior. I thought the supporting cast were all pretty good but none really get…

Hercule Poirot gets the grim-n-gritty treatment as you always hoped he would!

In this bleak-as-fuck, nihilistic take on Agatha Christie's weirdo Belgian detective, John Malkovich puts on what is undoubtedly the most atrocious Belgian/French accent in recorded history. In addition to being nothing like his literary counterpart in personality or dialogue, the character has been given a "deep dark secret past" (it's all one big Brexit metaphor, basically), where he was, in his Belgian life, a priest for some goddamned reason. I guess that's a spoiler, but really, who gives a fuck? If Poirot ever talked about God or religion in the books, I sure as shit don't remember it.

The point is, this is Christie and Poirot in name…