Why Poirot will be taking to the Chichester Festival Theatre stage this summer

Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie, adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig and directed by Jonathan Church (May 13-June 4), looks certain to be one of the great highlights of this year’s Chichester Festival Theatre summer season.

Hercule Poirot boards the legendary Orient Express, enjoying the prospect of a luxurious rail journey from Istanbul to Calais in the dead of winter. The train is surprisingly packed for the time of year; only the intervention of the manager secures Poirot a first-class berth, alongside an intriguing and glittering company of international travellers. But just after midnight, the Orient Express screeches to a halt, marooned by a snowdrift. And by morning, one passenger is dead…

Have you read?: Chichester Festival Theatre unveils 60th-anniversary 2022 summer season

Henry Goodman makes a return to Chichester to play Poirot, following his appearances in Yes, Prime Minister (2010) and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (2012-13), also directed by Jonathan Church.

In the blank CFT summer of 2020, Henry was due to open the season as Galileo in Brecht’s Life of Galileo – and then the season was cancelled.

Murder On The Orient Express, with Henry as Poirot , was then lined up for the 2021 summer season, but sadly, with more lockdowns looming, it was cancelled before it was even announced.

But now at last all is set fair.

Have you read?: Everything you need to know: Chichester Festival Theatre summer 2022

As CFT artistic director Daniel Evans explains: “It has all been a conversation with Henry. He is loved by our audiences. He was going to play Galileo and then when we started coming back we thought that maybe three hours of Brecht might not be the wisest thing!”

Instead collectively they have opted for a Poirot of rare moral complexity: “Obviously I don't want to give too much away but of all the Poirot stories, this is the one where he is making really the most difficult decision of all at the end, one that really challenges his sense of justice and morality.

“I think in our own way with what we have all been living through, we have also had to grapple with our own sense of what is right and what is wrong, and I do think that of all the Agatha Christie stories this is the one that most reflects that, the fact that it really challenges Poirot’s beliefs.

“And Henry being Henry he is going to pour his great intellect into that. He was really over the moon when the idea came up. It was in conversation with Jonathan Church and it's the first time that Jonathan is coming back to the Festival Theatre (as part of the main summer season). He still lives locally and we were just talking about working with him and what we could do. This came up and it was just really absolutely a no-brainer that we were going to do it.”

As for the design, Daniel is absolutely delighted with what they will be putting on the stage but inevitably, given that Chichester is a thrust stage, the whole endeavour comes with added challenges.

But the great news, though, is that the Agatha Christie estate are really keen to revitalise and reappraise Christie’s work: “We are not talking about something that is old fashioned and fusty but something that really does speak to us now.”

In the background, of course, are the Kenneth Branagh films: “The Branagh films are hugely stylish and packed with stars but their key themes are universal and that is what we are seeing. In all these whodunits there is something that happens in our society and something goes wrong and we need to search out who is responsible and to restore a sense of justice.

“The Agatha Christie estate have been very, very open and very collaborative. They have a new energy about wanting to make sure that the works speak to us now and will continue to speak to future generations. The estate is really in the vanguard of wanting to make sure that these works survive for audiences now and audiences yet to come.”

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