Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile by Ken Ludwig. Richmond Theatre, 1 Little Green, Richmond TW9 until 10 October 2025 and then on tour, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan.

Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile by Ken Ludwig. Richmond Theatre, 1 Little Green, Richmond TW9 until 10 October 2025 and then on tour,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“The play just about survives.”

Never having read Agatha Christie’s novel but having seen John Guillermin's 1978 film written by Anthony Shaffer in which Peter Ustinov created the perfect Hercule Poirot until sometime later David Suchet came along with an equally inspired creation, this version by Ken Ludwig took me by surprise. It is very different from the first film version and from the book - I read the synopsis when I got home in order to to see what Ludwig had done to the book - than the filmed version which was star studded and memorable. Ludwig has, for a start, eliminated two of the deaths and added a most bizarre scene involving a mummy inside which the young woman who will die gets locked. The play is perfectly serviceable but the Ustinov and the Suchet television versions are so much better that one feels cheated. Try as he might, and try he does, Mark Hadfield fails to create much of an impression as Poirot. He does not do either a Ustinov or Suchet impersonation but his Poirot fades into the background and the whole point about Christie's Poirot novels is that they are about him just as the Miss Marple ones are about her. Poirot is the star and everyone else does glittering turns around him.  Nobody in the cast gets a chance to do much to impress – Glynis Barber is wasted as Salome Otterbourne - while the denouement, when Poirot explains how heiress Linnet Ridgeway ends up dead in bed with a bullet in her brain and husband Simon with a bullet in his leg, is a bit of a mess. We should be marvelling at Hercule's perspicacity instead of wondering how the killers – there are two of them – did it. The production directed by Lucy Bailey, which will tour after this stint at Richmond, proves no tour de force you could say, Things are not helped by a remarkably dingy set for the Nile boar on which everyone is travelling and the fact we never see the Nile. We could as easily be taking a boat down the Thames to Greenwich. Or indeed up it to Richmond. The audience was happy enough spending a night away from the box but just why Ludwig, who has a most distinguished career as a writer of plays, bothered to create a stage version unfaithful to the original book remains a mystery – except Christie is theatrical box office gold.

Cast

Mark Hadfield – Hercule Poirot

Libby Alexandra-Cooper – Linnet Ridgeway

Camilla Anvar – Rosalie Otterbourne

Glyis Barber – Salome Otterbourne

Bob Barrett – Colonel Race

David Boyle – Ensemble

James Camp – Offstage Cover

Max Dinnen – Ensemble

Howard Gossington – Atticus Praed

Esme Hough – Jacqueline De Bellefort

Helen Katamba – Annabele Pennington

Nye Occomore – Simon Doyle

Nicholas Prasad – Ramses Praed

Nadia Sash – Ensemble

Terence Wilton – Septimus Troy

Creatives

Director – Lucy Bailey

Designer – Mike Britton

Lighting Designer – Oliver Fenwick

Sound Designer – Mic Pool

Movement Director – Liam Steel

Fight Director – Philip D'Orleans

Dialect Cpach - Edna Sharpe