6. Triangle at Rhodes

Air date: 12/02/1989
Published: Fourth story in "Murder in the Mews" (1937)

As its title suggests, Triangle at Rhodes features perhaps the classic motive in the world of murder mystery - the 'love triangle'.

The twist, however, in this delightful tale, is it's not the couple you are expecting it to be who are planning deeds most foul.

As the title also suggests, this story is set on the island of Rhodes. In the original it opens with Poirot sitting on the beach talking to Miss Pamela Lyall, a talkative, inquisitive soul, who functions as a kind of 'Hastings stand-in', asking all the questions, appearing thoroughly confused and acting as a suitable foil and sounding-board for Poirot's 'little grey cells'.

The TV adaptation opens with a brief and, to my mind, largely unnecessary scene outside Whitehaven Mansions where the doorman and the postman discuss the fact that everyone is away: Hastings has gone shooting, Miss Lemon has gone to her sister's in Folkestone, and Poirot has gone abroad on holiday. We then cut to the two key couples, Tony and Valentine Chantry and Douglas and Marjorie Gold, arriving at the hotel in Rhodes. It is quite some time before we actually reach the point at which the original novella begins.

An additional character, Miss Sarah Blake, is omitted, without any real loss to the flow, and another, General Barnes, is beefed up considerably (although he has now been demoted to the rank of 'Major'). In the adaptation he presents himself as a rather dyed-in-the-wool fishing lover - but Poirot works out that he is really a British spy, keeping an eye on the activities of the occupying Italian forces.

Despite that, the production is very faithful to the original, with the man-eating Valentine drinking a poisoned Pink Gin which, it is initially assumed, was really meant for her husband (to clear the way for Douglas) but was in fact meant for her in order to implicate Douglas at the same time and so free up Tony and the rather plain Mrs Gold to be together.

The TV producers' obsession with exciting 'car-chase' type endings continued. In the absence of Hastings and his sports car we had a boat chase - Major Barnes stepping up to the plate and providing the transport!