Evil Under the Sun

Poirot on holiday is a contradiction in terms, and this episode proves it. He has come to a health resort on an island for rest and recuperation. But the rest lasts about as long as it takes a flirtatious film star to be found strangled on the beach. Arlena Stuart is dead before anyone has finished unpacking, and the quiet retreat turns into a crime scene with a sea view. Nobody at the resort admits to liking Arlena, which is another way of saying everyone noticed her.

The resort is full of people who knew her and knew her too well. Patrick Redfern is there with his wife Christine, along with Stephen Lane, Rosamund Darnley and Emily Brewster, and the closer Poirot looks, the more old lovers and old grudges come out of the sunshine. The official summary calls her a young bride, and her death surfaces old loves that nobody at the resort wants to discuss. Hastings is along for the questions, Miss Lemon keeps her usual steady course, and Japp turns up to do the policing.

Agatha Christie and Anthony Horowitz wrote it, and Brian Farnham directed. David Suchet is Poirot, with Hugh Fraser as Hastings, Philip Jackson as Japp and Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon. Louise Delamere plays Arlena Stuart, doomed in the brightness; Michael Higgs is Patrick Redfern, Tamzin Malleson is Christine Redfern, Tim Meats is Stephen Lane, Marsha Fitzalan is Rosamund Darnley and Carolyn Pickles is Emily Brewster.

There is something almost rude about a murder this violent in a setting this pretty, and the production leans into the contrast. The island glows, the costumes stay white and cream, and the corpse keeps interrupting the scenery. Poirot treats the whole affair as a mental exercise. He is the only man on the island who treats the murder as work rather than entertainment, and the episode is better for it. It is work he plainly enjoys, which is probably the closest the man ever gets to rest.