Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie

The significance of this cryptic inquiry is not revealed until near the end of episode three, and there’s many a false trail and several more corpses along the way. He sees a man’s body lying on the beach below, and reaches it just in time to hear the victim’s last words, “why didn’t they ask Evans?'. Bobby Jones (Will Poulter), the local vicar’s son and a former Naval officer, is caddying for Dr Thomas when he hears a cry from the nearby cliff-edge.

It’s on the golf course in the Welsh coastal town of Marchbolt that our story begins.

There’s also a droll turn by Paul Whitehouse as the landlord of the Angler’s Arms (a nod to Whitehouse’s double act with Bob Mortimer in Gone Fishing), while Conleth Hill makes an all too brief appearance as Dr Alwyn Thomas, a keen golfer despite his artificial leg. Laurie’s undoubted cachet has enabled him to call in a few favours, with Jim Broadbent and Emma Thompson popping in for a couple of breezy cameos as Lord and Lady Marcham ( pictured below, Laurie on set with Broadbent, Thompson and Lucy Boynton). As a result the show feels spry and wry as it wends its way to a conclusion, finding room to enjoy the eccentricities and peccadilloes of its cast along the way. The plot is a twisty, slippery thing involving murder, deception, various misleading identities and the forgery of a wealthy man’s will, but Laurie pays as much attention to characterisation and dialogue as he does to the mere mechanics of the plot. However, Christie completists will doubtless already know that a previous ITV version of the story from 2011 converted it into a vehicle for Julia McKenzie’s Marple. Wisely, he has steered clear of the well-worked territory of Poirot and Miss Marple, and instead has adapted a Christie novel from 1934 which introduces us to a pair of amateur sleuths, Bobby Jones and Lady Francis Derwent (familiarly known as Frankie).

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie