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Agatha and the Midnight Murders takes place in London, 1940, where the city has been decimated by the Second World War.
Portrayed by Helen Baxendale, Agatha Christie is planning to kill off Poirot in her next novel, and she’ll sell the book to a superfan who’ll pay £20,000 for the privilidge of owning it, that mean being Frankie Lei (Thomas Channing), who’s present in a hotel with his wife, Jun (Elizabeth Tan – Emily In Paris).
Taking Agatha there is her friend and chauffeur, Travis (Blake Harrison), even though he’s pretty much against most races of the world as she presses him for details when he starts to get into it, and as it turns out, he’ll come across several of them on their arrival.
But anything can happen during a war, and as you’d expect at this time, an air raid breaks out during the deal. Are they going to go down into a bunker, or stay where they are and drink a lot? There’s a chance the bunker might not save them, but it does have the second largest gramophone in London, so I’m game! Well, it’s the best technology you’re going to get 80 years ahead of the nVidia RTX3080.
All that said, the bar has never been bombed before, but is this the time that it will be? Well, if there’s anything happens in an Agatha Christie story, it’s mystery, and despite the confines, not everyone will get out alive, but who’s doing the deed?
Early on, there’s a kerfuffle while they’re underground, in which Agatha requires the help of a female PC (Jodie McNee), who has already assisted them with the safety drill following the aforementioned air raid.
At bit later, when one man produces a knife as a potential starter for a fight as things get heated, and another starts whistling Colonel Bogey, I started thinking of The Breakfast Club, which is on Netflix at the moment.
Overall, Agatha and the Midnight Murders is a bit daft and it does go on a bit, even though it does have twists and turns all over the place (some of which I followed), and you do get Alistair Petrie (as Sir Malcolm Campbell, and wanting to hang around in the bar whatever happens) in his traditional ‘posh twat’ role, so it’s amusing when one person says, “God, he’s such a wanker!” 😀
There’s obviously a lot I can’t say about this one-off drama prior to broadcast, and I wouldn’t want to give spoilers, but it’s safe to state that this is an unofficial drama and has not had the approval of the Agatha Christie estate. Then again, it’s still better than some of the recent BBC adaptations of the famous writer’s works, such as the godawful The Pale Horse.
As an aside, I saw this tweet about how dark it looked on the broadcast. I took a look and it certainly was a damn sight darker compared to the preview I saw. I don’t normally need to bring up the brightness on a TV drama, but I would’ve had to if I was watching this one. I don’t know if the colour grading for the final version is different to the preview, or whether the difference was because I saw the preview via my PC on the TV, but either way, as I said, I would’ve had to raise the brightness if I watched this live.
https://twitter.com/Lost_In_Films_/status/1313945397241540608
Agatha and the Midnight Murders is broadcast tomorrow on Channel 5 at 9pm. It is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release on December 28th.
If you missed it, you can watch the each episode on the My5 for 30 days after transmission.
Score: 5/10
Director: Joe Stephenson
Producers: Tom Dalton, Carol Harding
Writer: Tom Dalton
Music: Blair Mowat
Agatha Christie: Helen Baxendale
Travis Pickford: Blake Harrison
Sir Malcolm Campbell: Alistair Petrie
Eli Sciacchitano: Daniel Caltagirone
Jun Lei: Elizabeth Tan
Frankie Lei: Thomas Channing
Audrey Evans: Jacqueline Boatswain
PC O’Hanauer: Jodie McNee
Rocco Vella: Morgan Watkins
Clarence Allen: Nell Lewis
Grace Nicory: Gina Bramhill
Nell Lewis: Vanessa Grasse
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.