Published: 1926
Sunday, January 2nd, 2000. The froth on the big new year's celebrations had gone. The so-called millennium bug had not, it seemed, wiped out our computers. Many people were, no doubt, contemplating a return to work the next morning after an extended Christmas break.
And this was the night Agatha Christie's Poirot returned to our screens after a four year gap. It seems strange looking back on that time now, although I'll say more when I get to David Suchet's reflections.
The series returned with an adaptation of the book often acclaimed as the masterpiece which really established Christie's reputation: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
When I embarked on this project of comparing the written word with the TV adaptations I had to consider the inevitable revealing of plot lines - 'spoilers', as they are called in the entertainment industry. I consoled myself with the likelihood that the only people who would be interested in my analytical musings would be fans; those who had already seen the TV productions, or read the books - or both.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the first story where I have had qualms about revealing all. So (and this is probably the only time I will write this) if you don't know the story, you might care to skip this chapter until you do.
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the third novel to feature Hercule Poirot. It was also preceded by the publication of the first collection of eleven short stories, Poirot Investigates.Those who had already become fans were, therefore, by now familiar with Christie's use of the 'character-narrator' technique; where someone within the story tells the story. That character had been Poirot's trusty sidekick Captain Arthur Hastings.
Now we meet a new character-narrator, village GP Dr James Sheppard. Poirot, already aged when readers first met him in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, had retired to the village of King's Abbot to grow marrows!
The big surprise Christie pulls in this book (and I can only imagine the initial impact it had when first published) is that the narrator turns out to be the murderer!
The story begins with the announcement that a Mrs Ferrars had died. She had overdosed, apparently, on veronol, a year after the death of her husband. Sheppard tells us about wealthy Roger Ackroyd and the various members of his family and staff. When he and his sister Caroline first meet their neighbour Poirot they assume he is a retired hairdresser!
Ackroyd invites the doctor to dinner and later reveals that Mrs Ferrars, with whom he had developed a romantic attachment, had confessed to having murdered her husband. Someone else knew about this and was blackmailing her. That very evening a letter arrives from Mrs Ferrars (written before she committed suicide) in which she will, it seems, reveal the name of the blackmailer.
The doctor leaves. At home he apparently receives a phone call from servant Parker saying Ackroyd has been murdered, but on returning to Ackroyd's home Parker knows nothing of this! On entering the study the pair discover Ackroyd has, in fact, been stabbed to death.
Suspicion eventually falls on Ackroyd's step-son Roger Paton, who has disappeared. Flora Ackroyd, daughter of Ackroyd's widowed sister-in-law (who is engaged to Paton), persuades Poirot to become involved in the investigations.
As in a number of Christie's stories everything revolves around timings. Ackroyd is heard talking in his study sometime after the doctor had left. Personal assistant Geoffrey Raymond was playing billiards with another guest, Hector Blunt. The doctor passed a mysterious visitor on his way home. The study window was open. Parker recognised a chair had been moved when he and the doctor entered the study. And someone had a rendevous in the garden summer house.
Poirot manages to navigate his way through all these distractions to work out that the doctor was the blackmailer and he killed Ackroyd to prevent this becoming known. He had used a dictaphone, hidden behind the chair, to make it sound as though Ackroyd was alive later than he was. For those with keen observation skills - or, in my case, for those who know the story in advance - there are a couple of clear clues in the doctor's narration of events to suggest he was the killer.
We eventually find out that Paton has already secretly married the parlourmaid, Ursula Bourne. Another red herring concerns the drug-taking son of one of the staff.
So how would the scriptwriters handle this plot for TV? The adaptation begins when it is all over, and Poirot is reading the journal written by the murderer. Poirot's reading is cleverly interspersed throughout.
The doctor already knows Poirot as a retired detective. His sister appears less of a nosey gossip-monger than in the original. The adaptation is very faithful to the main key elements of the plot, with a few inevitable simplifications for TV. Some of the characters, like Hector Blunt and some of the servants, are omitted, along with some sub-plots - notably the drug-taking Charles Kent. Our old friend Chief Inspector Japp replaces Inspector Raglan, and his first meeting with Poirot is something of a touching reunion between two old comrades.
One surprise is an additional murder! Parker is run over on his way home from an evening drinking at the local pub. Clearly he was killed for being too observant about details (like the chair that was moved).
It is, however, the finale that provides the biggest difference. In the original Poirot confronts the doctor with the true sequence of events. The doctor departs and the last, sombre chapter sees him writing immediately before, apparently, taking his own life.
For TV his sister finds the journal in the glove compartment of the doctor's car, along with a gun (which, apparently, he had originally taken with him to kill Ackroyd with, before deciding to take advantage of an ornamental daggar already in the house). She joins the denouement conversation and allows Sheppard to grab the gun and attempt an escape. However, he does eventually take his own life - with the final bullet in the revolver.
The dramatic chase through Ackroyd's factory seemed somewhat out of keeping with the plot, and with the character of the doctor himself.
At one point Poirot and Japp visit London, and take the opportunity to look round Poirot's old flat. There he talks of ghosts from the past. At the end of the episode he confesses that he could not escape human nature by simply retiring to the country - paving the way, we assume, for normality to be resumed in the next episode!
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