‘Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy’ Review: Not-So-Accidental Deaths

‘How can someone murder three people in an English village without it being noticed?” wonders Luke Fitzwilliam (David Jonsson), who despite a scholarly background and evident powers of perception hasn’t noticed he is in an Agatha Christie story. “I noticed, my dear,” responds his fellow train passenger, Miss Pinkerton (Penelope Wilton), and the game, as they say, is afoot.

But what, exactly, is the game? In “Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy”—adapted by director Meenu Guar and writer Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre with a casual fidelity to Dame Agatha’s 1939 novel (also titled “Easy to Kill”)—a village called Wychwood Under Ashe has seen a recent spate of “accidental” deaths. Miss Pinkerton, refusing to believe the conclusion of the local coroner, is on her way to harass Scotland Yard when she finds herself sharing a train compartment with Luke, a cultural anthropologist from Nigeria who himself is en route to London to accept a job at Whitehall. Upon their arrival at Waterloo Station, Miss Pinkerton first places a winning bet on the Epsom Derby (this is 1954), and then becomes the victim of vehicular homicide. Luke, responsible fellow that he is, heads to Wychwood, to pursue his late acquaintance’s lead on what seems to be a case of serial murder.

Again, the game is murder, but not merely a Christie-conjured solution to a cleverly constructed crime spree. Or one with an opaque motive. It is a burlesquing of the entire murder-in-the-village genre. Luke’s initial comment above is one tipoff, though it comes too early to have quite the intended effect. What we encounter along Luke’s investigative trail is a catalog of mystery conventions and characters who could populate an alternate-universe version of “Clue.” Among them is the pencil-mustachioed popinjay, Lord Whitfield (Tom Riley), whose housing development promises to further upend the uneasy balance of the town. His fiancée, the bored Bridget Conway (a fabulous Morfydd Clark), immediately begins exchanging longing looks with Luke. There is a vicar, an inept constable, and the more louche part of town is known as Ashe Bottom. The acting is broad enough to make one wonder—Bridget’s wide-eyed reaction to Luke when he asks for four sugars in his tea is the same as if she’d just found another body. The unlikely premise—that a Nigerian transplant would be nosing around a close-mouthed English village—becomes the least outrageous aspect of a program that intends, without becoming a Monty Python sketch, to tickle the Christie fan with caricatures while still telling a tale of murder. And a killer who comes out of almost nowhere.

Mr. Jonsson plays the upright Luke with something close to a smile—he half expects to be run out of town at any moment, though his exoticism isn’t really a matter of much discussion. Ms. Clark (so brilliant in 2019’s “Saint Maud”) is droll throughout; Mr. Riley seems to want to twirl that mustache, if only it were long enough. “Murder Is Easy” will be best enjoyed by those with an appreciation for the idiosyncrasies of Christie, for fictional English murder and for pumping new fuel into antique vehicles.

Agatha Christie’s Murder Is Easy

Friday, Britbox

Mr. Anderson is the Journal’s TV critic.