Poirot Reloaded

From David Suchet to Peter Ustinov and Kenneth Branagh, some of Britain’s best actors have taken on the role of Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.

Now, an equally famous US actor gets the chance to put his stamp on the character when John Malkovich delivers a new interpretation of the dapper detective that’s in stark contrast to anything we have seen before.

The Hollywood star takes centre stage in BBC1’s three-part adaptation of The ABC Murders, which has been adapted by Sarah Phelps, and finds Poirot in a vulnerable state with his fame on the wane and haunted by his troubled past.

But the shrewd Belgian’s little grey cells are soon being tested when he receives some mysterious letters signed ‘ABC’, one of which warns that something sinister is due to happen in Andover.

After tobacconist Alice Asher is murdered in the Hampshire town with an ABC railway guide left beside her body, and then waitress Betty Barnard is killed in Bexhill, will the wealthy Carmichael Clarke, who lives in Churston, be targeted next by a murderer who has a sickening alphabetical agenda?