There is good news if you’re an indefatigable Agatha Christie fan who hasn’t yet had enough of her limitless, delectable mysteries with the most famous fictional characters unraveling them for us, despite ‘red herrings’ strewn all across the crime scenes ! In our eternal search for some watchable content on OTT to pass the evening pre-dinner hours, we stumbled across on ‘Sony Liv’, an old British tele-series of 1989, titled ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ which has a staggering 70 episodes spread over 13 Seasons ! Like greedy netizens we have already watched five wonderful stories @ one episode per evening !
One may rightly say that it’s not necessary that both should agree to watch the same stuff on TV. Over the years we’ve disagreed on every conceivable issue (including people, politics, films) but are blessed to share our affinity for ‘Cricket’ and love for ‘Agatha Christie’. In this process, my dear better half has acquired remarkable investigative abilities. She knows if I’ve eaten out by observing the shape of my shirt across the middle or from my face ! Also in one episode, she pointed the killer to me, before even Poirot could !
Coming to the Series, the Victorian aura and the English countryside with huge, sprawling mansions, hats, tailcoats and butlers have been recreated with elegance but most importantly, ‘David Suchet’ is marvelous as Hercule Poirot, the ace detective with an egg-shaped head full of excellent grey cells. His Belgian persona is replete with the curled moustache and funny accent and he’s so ably assisted by his friend Capt. Hastings (much like Watson to Sherlock Holmes) who exclaims ‘Good Lord !’ when Poirot solves the case !
The episodes are based on different short stories (some presumably written by script writers) and many based on famous Christie novels like ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ that we saw recently. The short ones have a run time of about 45-50 minutes while the full length ones based on a novel could be 100 mts. In any case, for Agatha Christie fans, it is like unearthing a treasure and has saved us hours of industrious channel surfing. It’s quite perfect for family viewing sans gore, violence (barring the murders!) & today’s foul language.
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