Problem at Sea

Poirot books a Mediterranean cruise hoping for rest, and the viewer knows before he does how that will end. An obnoxious passenger makes sure of it. The man is the sort of traveller who ruins a voyage for everyone. He had wanted nothing more than to be left alone with the horizon. The victim's manner guaranteed him enemies in every port of call. But when the passenger turns up stabbed, the ship's holiday atmosphere curdles and Poirot's peace is gone for good.

The case spreads across the passenger list, a temporary community with nowhere to go and everything to hide. Kitty Mooney, Pamela Cregan, General Forbes, Captain Fowler, Nelly Morgan and Emily Morgan, the enigmatic Ismene, and the victim himself, Colonel John Clapperton. On a ship the suspects cannot scatter, which suits Poirot's methods perfectly: they are all trapped together while he takes them apart with questions. Shipboard gossip does half the investigating for him, and none of it can be trusted.

Clive Exton and Agatha Christie wrote it, Renny Rye directed. David Suchet plays Poirot with Hugh Fraser's Hastings in support. It went out on 19 February 1989. Melissa Greenwood is Kitty Mooney, Victoria Hasted plays Pamela Cregan, Roger Hume is General Forbes, Ben Aris plays Captain Fowler, Dorothea Phillips is Nelly Morgan, Sheri Shepstone plays Emily Morgan, Louisa Janes is Ismene and John Normington plays Colonel John Clapperton.

The glamour of the setting is the point: bright decks and white linen, a sea doing its best to look untroubled. Underneath runs the grim mechanics of detection. There is no walking away from a crime on the water, and the episode uses the fact well. Poirot would rather be resting. The murder has other plans. The ship's company closes ranks and the sea offers no opinions, leaving the little grey cells to sort the passengers from the suspects.