Murder On The Orient Express
Chichester Festival Theatre, until June 4
In the unlikely event there’s anyone in the world who still doesn’t know how Murder on the Orient Express ends, I’ll phrase this with care. The figure 12 is central to Agatha Christie’s ingenious plot. In Ken Ludwig’s stage adaptation it is, to put it mildly, irritating that we are down to eight passengers with a grudge against Mr Ratchett. That is not enough to make up a jury.
Some of the characters that will be familiar to anyone who has read the book or seen the classic Albert Finney film version have been pared down or paired up. Princess Dragomiroff (Joanna McCallum) is now attended to by Greta Ohlsson (Joanna van Kampen). Mr Ratchett (Timothy Watson) has to get by with only the neurotic Hector (Samuel Collings) to look after him and no butler.
Times being what they are, one shouldn’t perhaps complain too much about having to travel economy in Jonathan Church’s production. It’s also no mean feat to even attempt to put this particular whodunnit on Chichester’s main stage. The designer Robert Jones has created a relatively impressive engine of the Orient Express, but that’s it. In the opening moments, the abduction of little Daisy Armstrong (Sophie Bye and Eleanor Sebastian on alternate nights) is harrowingly done and there is a certain stylishness to the big murder scene. The periodic snowfalls are quite fun, too.
The production occasionally gets close to coming off the rails, but somehow doesn’t. The reassuring presence of Henry Goodman as Hercule Poirot helps enormously. Of course, it’s all very stagey and hammy, but, then again, if you can’t be stagey and hammy in an Agatha Christie, when, honestly, can you?
