Review by Simon Jenner, April 22nd 2025
January last year saw possibly the finest Christie dramatisation to appear at Theatre Royal Brighton: And Then There Were None. So when director Lucy Bailey returns with Murder on the Orient Express, her third Christie, expectations are high. They’re more than met in Ken Ludwig’s atmospheric, comedic and ultimately darker reading of Christie’s classic: one wholly attuned to Bailey’s vision. Premiered in New Jersey in 2017, it arrived at Chichester before embarking on this tour. Playing here till April 26th it’s the finest staging of a Christie yet on these boards.
Michael Maloney. Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan
One of the most popular Christie mysteries, it’s also easy to make this too lightweight: but the destruction of innocence is one of Christie’s abiding obsessions, and the perils of childhood inform her most profound writing (as profound as it can be in the genre). Clearly the Agatha Christie estate approves, and it’s produced in association with it.
Both Ludwig and Bailey share a vision of that moral dark leavened by flashes of stage humour, something Christie delights in. There’s speed and dispatch, never haste. The weight of responsibility registers. And at an opening in a leisurely restaurant table – as each of the characters is introduced (others by the station itself) – allows us and Hercule Poirrot to overhear their lives; and they to realise he’s doing it: a fine shorthand. Four characters have been conflated with others to make this two-hours-15 manageable, the ethical force concentrated.
Mike Britton’s set is a character in itself. It makes for an exhilarating whirl where actors and props spin round, flickering farce and winks to the audience. There’s sparing use of dry ice, below Ian William Galloway’s video design of huge train wheels or a child’s terrified face, equally sparse and evocative. With the sumptuous carriage both seen from outside, then reversed to show compartments, and at one point the dining car, this shapeshifting miracle is beautifully blocked in Leah Hausman’s movement direction. Lighting by Oliver Fenwick is sulphurous and brilliant, with some telling use of shadows and saturated darkness. Mic Pool’s sound isn’t intrusive, peaking at just the right time.
It’s a singular bloody tale, but there’s more than one assault, and a thrilling climax to Act One. Michael Maloney leads the cast as Poirot, who sashays between the bonhomie and warmth of a Peter Ustinov (the actor who depicted him in the 1974 film of Orient) and the ritualistic, troubled even prissy upholder of law others have highlighted. In Maloney’s hands this troubled man, presented to us at the outset, turns Christie’s story into one of greater moral dark. Even now, he says, Poirrot isn’t sure he made the right decision.
Rishi Rian and Iniki Mariano. Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan
By emphasising Poirrot’s belief in law above all, he has Poirrot talk of incipient fascism, its total disregard for rule of law: something Ludwig surely recalled in 2017 and which is back. If law’s terminated we have the dictator. This couldn’t be more pertinent, and though only touched on, it impels Poirrot’s dilemma. How set this against both empathy and righteous vengeance? And can he call on his great friend and impresario Monsieur Bouc (a warmly blustering but clearly shrewd Bob Barrett) to help navigate his dilemma? Hastings absent, Bouc has more agency in making his own moral choices.
Samuel Ratchett (Simon Cotton, thoroughly nasty in a bear-like growl of a performance) makes violent advances to beautiful Countess Elena (Mila Carter, also a doctor, both empathic and elusive), recalling she’s a commoner, and irritating man-eater and radio-blasting Helen Hibbard (Christie Kavanagh in a measured OTT, delighting in just how irritating she is) who slaps him. Ratchett’s luckless secretary Hector MacQueen (a nervous then steely Paul Keating) is called in to pick up pieces. But seems to thwart Ratchett’s advances by turning up at opportune times. But who is this tycoon? And why does he end up with eight stab-wounds in his bed, despite his gun? And who is this mysterious second guard everyone seems to see?
There’s the haughty Princess Dragomiroff (a deliciously pompous Debbie Chazen) and her “I have been in Efrika” companion, missionary Greta Ohlsson (Rebecca Charles, nervously flustered in a piety that claws at Greta); the omnipresent railway guard Michel (Jean-Baptiste Fillon) and finally lovers: upright but amorous Mary Debenham. Iniki Mariano suggests Mary’s appealing, morally compromised but honest; ardent, then stainless steel the next moment. For instance with Mary’s lover the Colonel (Rishi Rian, all burl and blunderbuss) who’s still divorcing his adulterous wife. With excellent support from an ensemble who help with movement and take tiny roles, Alex Steadman, Jasmine Raymond, Beth Tuckey, Matt Weyland suggest a swirl of choreographed action.
Paul Keating, Bob Barrett and Michael Maloney. Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan
Bob Bsrett and Christie Kavanagh. Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan
Motives are labyrinthine but all point in one direction. Inspired by the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s daughter, Christie asks where the rule of law ends and vengeance begins. Perhaps tilting at the very scales of justice. This is an exemplary, unsurpassable production, Even if you don’t like Christie it’s worth seeing not just for an exceptional – and exceptionally-acted – production, but for moral questions that now, as in 1934, need answers in the face of dictators. What would you do? See it first.
Fight Director Philip D’Orleans, Casting Director Abby Galvin
Costume Supervisor Sarah Holland, Props Supervisor Sharon Foley, Wigs, Hair and Make-Up Supervisor Elizabeth Marini, Dialect Coach Edda Sharpe, Production Manager Setting Line
Producers: Fiery Angel in Association with Agatha Christie Limited, Fiery Dragons, Richard Batchelder and Tilted
Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan
