Murder on the Orient Express
Given that the stage version of Murder on the Orient Express is an entirely new play, one might have expected great liberties to be taken but the reverse was the case - there was an evident reverence for the source text apparent throughout Ludwig's adaptation that tiptoed lightly over the darker themes of Christie's novel, preferring instead to focus on flashes of humour and the cosy familiarity of a tale retold.
Theatre Royal
Given the huge success of the original novel and the myriad adaptations that have followed, can there be anyone left on the planet that doesn't know whodunit on the Orient Express? Just in case someone from Moonbase Alpha is reading this, I won't spoil the ending, but an audience's foreknowledge must play a big part in rethinking a classic text for the stage. Back in 2019, Gareth Armstrong's brisk production of The Mousetrap had the Theatre Royal audience chuckling knowingly at the creaking absurdity of the play. In January of this year, Lucy Bailey's version of And Then There Were None cleverly wrong footed her theatre audience by restoring the original novel's nihilistic ending. Both productions managed to breathe new life into Christie's text. Given that the stage version of Murder on the Orient Express is an entirely new play, written by Ken Ludwig as recently as 2017, one might have expected even greater liberties to be taken, but the reverse was the case - there was an evident reverence for the source text apparent throughout Ludwig's adaptation that tiptoed lightly over the darker themes of Christie's novel, preferring instead to focus on flashes of humour and the cosy familiarity of a tale retold.
Central to the play's momentum is the character of Hercule Poirot, and this production has wisely chosen an actor with an unimpeachable CV to do all the heavy lifting. I first saw Michael Maloney perform live while naked up a tree In Lambeth (to clarify, he was up the tree, I was in the audience, the play was called In Lambeth). Despite countless film and TV appearances since, that early introduction to his ability to connect with a live audience, despite having no clothes on, left its mark. It was ability he used to good effect at the start of this production, with a whimsical soliloquy that bookended what was otherwise a play that filleted the plot from Christie's text with a workmanlike, if unambitious, thoroughness.
Christie Kavanagh managed to inject some life, and some laughs, out of American actress Helen Hubbard, while Bob Barrett handled a lot of necessary exposition as the avuncular Monsieur Bouc, more concerned with his rail company's reputation than murder. Simon Cotton offered up one of the stronger performances of the night, albeit one cut short by the requirements of the plot. Other cast members, however, fared less well. Given that, compared to the novel, the passengers had understandably been slimmed down to a more manageable number it was puzzling that short straws had nonetheless been handed it out to Paul Keating, Debbie Charente-Maritime and Milan Carter. Keating flustered ineffectually, Charente-Maritime quipped lamely, while Carter was, bizarrely, an actress (or perhaps heiress) with a medical background, creepily fawned over by Poirot. Their performances, and frankly the performances of others, frequently failed to convince, but I think that more the fault of the play, rather than direction or the actors themselves. They were given so little to work with that it’s unsurprising they failed to even achieve the status of archetypes. In the end, while all of the passengers had a motive for the eponymous murder, we otherwise learned so little about them that it was hard to work up any curiosity over who actually did it, or care much.
It should be said that the stage production was impressive. Back projection of churning locomotive wheels or a kidnapped child, a "steam" filled station concourse (pity those choking in first six rows drowning in billowing smoke), a revolving stage complete with an increasingly disassembled railway carriage, all made for a diverting visual treat. Even so, the necessary delay in manoeuvring the stage set tended to stifle what little momentum the play managed to build up. Ultimately, it felt as if we were being compensated for the lack of spoken drama with spectacle. As was once famously said about Lionel Bart's Blitz, you shouldn't come out of a show whistling the scenery.
Shortly before the play's conclusion, Hercule Poirot gathered all the suspects together in classic style, and we did – finally - get to see a bravado turn from Michael Maloney, as he ticked off the unusual suspects one by one. But it was too little, too late, and the reveal, when it finally arrived, was noticeably muted. Perhaps Ludwig appreciated that his audience would already know and therefore opted for understatement, but it did beg the question what was the point of it all.
I suppose the point of it all was a reminder of what Christie's fans so love about her stories, albeit in a truncated and neutered form. After all, Sarah Phelps elicited nothing short of outrage when she meddled with Christie's plots for the BBC, as if sacred texts had been desecrated, despite offering up fresh and surprising drama in the process. The audience at the Theatre Royal seemed happy enough with this production, applauding at the close of play with the now obligatory whoops of approval. I come to the theatre to be thrilled, challenged and surprised, not reminded of something I already know about, but if this play was intended for them, not me, then perhaps I need to lighten up a bit. So what if it simply reran a familiar story? That said, the morally ambivalent conclusion of Orient Express leads me to suspect Christie would have embraced a rethink of a plot that must have been constrained by the commercial imperatives of its time, and might well have wearied over the preciousness with which her legacy is now guarded.
