It’s worth taking a step back and thinking about how absurd Agatha Christie stories generally are. Take the murder mystery Towards Zero, which has enjoyed multiple film, stage and TV interpretations since it was published in 1944. It doesn’t hold anything back. Its maximalist plot involves a love triangle between a hunky tennis pro and two beautiful women; a bed-ridden but imposing matriarch and her headstrong companion; her legal representative and his light-fingered ward; the return of a notorious, long-lost relative of the family; a sinister manservant; a tormented police officer; a contested will; and an apparently cursed hotel. It seems safe to say that for Agatha Christie, “less is more” wasn’t a guiding aesthetic principle.
This isn’t necessarily a criticism but this choice presents a conundrum for anyone adapting these texts. Is it worth trying to tidy up this bedlam or do you lean in, luxuriate in the mayhem? This latest BBC version commits cheerfully and wholeheartedly to its set and setting. Subtlety isn’t really in the conversation.
