Death on the Nile
- Robert Beale
- Oct 2
- 3 min read
Ken Ludwig, after Agatha Christie
Fiery Angel & Agatha Christie Ltd
Lowry, Salford
September 26-October 4, 2025: 2 hrs 20 mins
(Also at York Grand Opera House, March 3-7, 2026; Sheffield Lyceum, March 10-14)
I’ve always thought that Death on the Nile has one of Agatha Christie’s most impossible and implausible plot lines – and that’s saying something for the ingenuity of the Queen of Crime.
But most of us have probably seen one or other of the filmed versions so, when we see it adapted for the stage, from the start we know whodunnit anyway. But here’s the thing: in this stage adaptation, opening at Salford's Lowry at the start of a long touring run, they know that we know.
There are cheerful references to the inevitable and familiar elements of the story. As the first corpse is discovered, Poirot (Mark Hadfield) announces: “She’s dead.” Well yes, we had guessed that.
As Poirot gathers all the suspects around him for the final interrogation and exposure, Colonel Race (Bob Barrett) says – to the audience more than anyone: “I hate this part.” We know what he means. But all these lines, and more besides, get a laugh.
And, since we know how it’s all going to turn out, the real interest is in how they tell it and what little extras they throw in along the way.
As a piece of storytelling, it’s straightforward and outlines the simplified plot economically. We start in the British Museum, to get the Egyptology bit in and set up the basis for much of the intrigue. But the main set, by Mike Britton, is a two-storey affair that represents the Nile steamer where everything important happens (no trip to Abu Simbel or falling masonry here).
Under Lucy Bailey’s direction, the essential love triangle is clear: Jacqueline de Bellefort (Esme Hough) is pursuing her former fiance, Simon Doyle (Nye Occomore), who has married her former friend, Linnet Ridgeway (Libby Alexandra-Cooper). Most of the suspects from the original yarn are there, including novelist Salome Otterbourne (Glynis Barber) and her daughter Rosalie (Camilla Anvar); and shady trustee Andrew Pennington has become Annabelle Pennington (Helen Katamba), who strangely harbours a Communist-style hatred of the wealthy. Egyptologist Atticus Praed (Howard Gossington) is on board, and his son Ramses (Nicholas Prasad) is a doctor (you need one of them), and fancies Rosalie. I think the ageing actor Septimus Troy (Terence Wilton), there to provide Salome with a bit of love interest, is a new invention.
Lighting design by Oliver Fenwick is only partly successful in showing who is meant to be where on the steamer, and how they could or could not have been the murderer. But the most effective aspect of the production is the sound design, by Mic Pool, which is full of atmospheric “actuality” background and incorporates snatches of appropriate music, too, illustrating changes of timing and location.
The little fight scene doesn’t really work; some of the actors have to muck in by moving furniture now and then, and the filmic “replays” showing what really happened (as opposed to what we originally thought we saw) are a bit awkward, if inevitable.
But the real interest is in what the cast make of their characters (the girls are intense, if occasionally a bit shouty; most of the men are solid enough), and of course how Poirot is personified. Mark Hadfield has the appropriate small stature (though he doesn’t do the “mincing” gait; only David Suchet has ever taken that seriously), and is more reminiscent of Peter Ustinov in the 1978 film than his other predecessors. But I liked his semi-comical, slightly bumbling, portrayal, and so, no doubt will thousands of others.
More info and tickets here
