Appointment with Death

Syria, 1937. An archaeological dig, a family holiday with a difference, and a woman found stabbed to death. Lady Boynton was abusive and overbearing, the sort of matriarch who rules her family the way a tyrant rules a state, and her relatives had endured her for years. Plenty of people wanted her dead. But the trick was working out which of them finally did it.

Poirot questions the family circle: Lord Boynton, Sarah, Raymond Boynton, Jinny Boynton, Carol Boynton, the Nanny, and the local people who keep the dig running, a Labourer and a Concierge. The Boynton children especially give the impression of people who have been bent out of shape by years of control. Every one of them has a reason, and every one of them has an alibi that someone else confirms. The setting does its part: an excavation site is a strange place for a family holiday, all ancient stones and modern resentments.

Guy Andrews adapted Christie's novel, and Ashley Pearce directed. Tim Curry makes a memorably grim Lord Boynton, with Cheryl Campbell as the dead Lady Boynton, Christina Cole as Sarah, Tom Riley as Raymond, Zoe Boyle as Jinny and Emma Cunniffe as Carol. Angela Pleasence appears as the Nanny. The episode aired as the Christmas special of 2009, and it wears the holiday slot lightly.

The episode looks magnificent, all dust and heat and the romance of an ancient site, but the real interest is in the family. Christie wrote a novel about the damage a dominating parent can do, and the adaptation keeps that at the front. The murder is almost an afterthought compared to the portrait of what Lady Boynton did to her children.

It is a contained mystery with a genuinely horrible victim, which is rarer than you would think in detective fiction. You end up half-sympathising with the suspects, and that makes the solution land harder. The dust and the dig give it atmosphere, but the horror of it is domestic, and that is what stays with you.