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.
And in truth, no one watches a Sunday evening Agatha Christie expecting nuance. Instead, these dramas have well-worn narrative and presentational beats and this latest version of Towards Zero largely hits them. A lot of the appeal is continuity, in terms of look and language. This is, and will always be, a world of ladies’ companions and steel bathtubs; wooden-framed tennis rackets and gentlemen “summering” in their ancestral homes. It’s a world where an ambitious woman risks being called an “adventuress” (which is one up from “gold-digger” at least). Towards Zero is nicely realised and this is the stuff these dramas really need to get right – the style is plenty more important than the substance.
At the heart of the action is Lady Tressilian, brought to life with a hefty dollop of Hollywood star power by Anjelica Huston. At first, she and her trusted lawyer Treves (Clarke Peters) will act as referees as all around them, the bright young things lose their heads. In fairness, they really can’t be blamed – what follows, while largely self-inflicted, would test the patience of saints.
Tennis star Nevile Strange and his wife Audrey are divorcing. Nevile (who “has never been a cad” according to Lady T but you’d be unwise to stake your reputation on this generous assessment) has decided to take his new squeeze Kay to his old coastal pile Gull’s Point for their honeymoon. This transparently selfish decision becomes borderline sadistic when it transpires that Audrey, for reasons that remain oblique, is going to be there too. Oddly, Nevile persists, and equally mysteriously, Kay abandons her dreams of the Cote D’Azur and acquiesces. Maybe not a cad then, but certainly not the sharpest tool in the box.
Still, the ingredients for murder don’t seem present quite yet. What will stir this volatile cocktail into outright homicide? Could the catalyst be a chance encounter with Kay’s resentful ex Morrell at the disreputable, jazz-infested Easter Head Bay Hotel? Quite possibly. So why not invite him back to the house for some late night drinks? What could possibly go wrong? It’s around this time that anyone with a taste for clunky visual metaphors will be able to enjoy a lingering shot of two knives being sharpened. It’s that kind of show.
But there’s more. With Agatha Christie, there’s always more. There’s thievery from Treves’s orphaned adoptive child. (“I’m a delinquent!” she says proudly, just in case viewers were in any doubt). There’s the mysterious scheming of Lady T’s companion Mary who is determined to introduce family black sheep Thomas Royde into the mix (“Thomas, you are not welcome at Gull’s point. Come anyway”). There are various shambling interventions from broken, boozy Inspector Leach – a nicely vulnerable performance from Matthew Rhys that sticks out like a sore thumb in a world where otherwise, not a single item of scenery escapes unchewed.
Meanwhile, up in her eyrie, Lady T has an idea which might not exactly calm this gathering storm. Accordingly, there’s an announcement: “Lady Tressilian is not to be disturbed. She is reconsidering her will.” But how soon will this document be read? Finally, murder really does seem inevitable. In fact, the only question is how many? No one is safe.
This is all obviously ludicrous. But it’s a lot of fun too – a set of outlandish fictional problems created simply for the pleasure of watching their resolution. Christie was not a subtle writer but she endures for a reason. Her mysteries have a paradoxical quality. They’re chaotic but somehow, they’re neat too. They’re formulaic but often become unpredictable through the sheer weight of possibility. Their worlds are overflowing with both casually brutal acts and precise, genteel moral certainties. And for this reason, they don’t demand reinvention, simply that their adaptors immerse themselves and us fully into their worlds and commit completely. Towards Zero is an overripe confection. But sometimes, that’s exactly what you fancy.
