Murder on the Orient Express – Review – Sheffield Lyceum Theatre
By Clare Jenkins, February 2025
Christie enthusiasts will tell you that there’s nothing like a good Agatha. And this is a very good Agatha. For a start, it’s a darn sight better than Kenneth Branagh’s CGI-dependent 2017 film version. And, unlike Branagh, Michael Maloney has no need of a double-squirrel-tail moustache to make his mark as urbane Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. His is a classier portrayal altogether: sharp grey suit and waistcoat, fine overcoat, leather gloves, subtle accent and all. This Poirot – onstage throughout – is also considerably more charming, sensitive and self-deprecating than Branagh’s bombastic mockery.
Ken Ludwig’s adaptation has been chugging its way round the US since 2017 before arriving here in the UK. Lucy Bailey’s pacy, affectionate and seamlessly directed production may not have the glitzy Hollywood cast of the 1974 film version where a peculiarly hunched, oily-haired Albert Finney played Poirot, nor the dark anger of David Suchet’s haunted 2010 TV adaptation. But, nom d’un nom d’un nom, it still has style, elegance, lashings of old-fashioned appeal, and a typically fiendish Christie plot.
“Nostalgic atmosphere”
All told, the stagecraft is as carefully plotted as the murder. Eight passengers board the luxurious Orient Express in Istanbul en route for Calais, only to become stuck in snow en route. One of them – the swaggering, bullying American tycoon Ratchett (Simon Cotton) – won’t get off alive. So whodunnit? Was it the flirtatious American divorcee Helen Hubbard (Christine Kavanagh), the exiled Russian Princess Dragomiroff (an imperious Debbie Chazen), her neurotically religious maid (Rebecca Charles), the glamorous Hungarian countess (Mila Carter), the valet (Paul Keating)? All, inevitably, have their secrets. Can Poirot – whose “little grey cells” are his “constant companion” – discover them before the train moves again?
Mike Britton’s stunning set creates just the right nostalgic atmosphere from the start. A smoky station. A gloriously gleaming Pullman carriage which revolves or glides open to reveal (jigsaw-style) Art Deco compartments furnished with polished wood panels, beds, soft table lamps and blinds. It is, as the train company’s genial director Monsieur Bouc describes it, “poetry on wheels”.
The costumes are equally stylish, from the princess’s emerald velvet and black satin ensemble through Poirot’s natty spats to Mary Debenham’s neat suit.
At one point, Poirot says of Mrs Hubbard that “She’s turned in the finest performance of the evening.” He’s not far wrong, as Kavanagh plays her character as vivacious, challenging, full of sassy verve and sharp one-liners, singing ‘Lullaby on Broadway’ one minute, crying into her ancient teddy bear the next. “Amusing is my middle name,” as she flirtatiously tells Michel, the French train conductor (Jean-Baptise Fillon). “My first name is Extremely.”
“Sense of justice”
Along with the mounting tension, there’s a lot of sly humour here, with no-one taking their characters too seriously, while keeping them this side of Cluedo parody. “There are dozens of clues in this room,” Poirot says after discovering the very bloodied corpse, along with a random pipe cleaner, burnt match, initialled handkerchief and smashed pocket watch. “It makes me suspicious.” He’s soon on the right track – quel surprise!
In another scene, M. Bouc (Bob Barrett, acting as a perfect foil to Poirot, though with an accent that’s often derailed) is on the phone to the rail depot. “We’re in a snow drift,” he tells them. “We’re running out of supplies, the passengers are angry, and we have a dead man rotting in Compartment 2. So – how are things with you?”
There are some changes to the original text – the shooting of a second character, for instance, and the reduction of characters (there are 12 in the 1934 novel). But it’s all done with respect for the original and a ratcheting up of tension. The ending, with its sense of justice and retribution taking place outside the confines of the law, still has the power to shock.
Yes, as a Christie enthusiast myself, I know there’s nothing like a good Agatha. And this is, actually, an excellent one. All aboard!
‘Murder on the Orient Express’ is at Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre until Saturday, then on tour until May
images: Manuel Harlan
