Review: Murder on the Orient Express (Touring)

Tuesday, 25th March 2025 at the Grand Opera House, York

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ken Ludwig adapts Agatha Christie’s classic thriller for the stage, bringing a blend of wry humour and melodrama to a famous tale of and mystery aboard a train.

Mike Britton’s locomotive set is a pivotal element of success for the production – literally, in fact, as it makes fantastic use of a revolve to take us between carriage aisles and carriage rooms. Providing a pleasing sense of novelty, the visuals are engaging and the whole thing is impressive in the way it captures the tense claustrophobia of the murder-aboard-the-train circumstances, even if pace seems a bit laboured at times thanks to the limited speed of the revolve. 

The suspect list is generous and the cast do well to make the characters distinct and memorable in key details. Michael Maloney’s Hercule Poirot is a nostalgic sort of detective, charming and reserved in turn but also prone to some less effective outbursts. Meanwhile Bob Barrett brings welcome flashes of silliness in his physicality as Monsieur Bouc (owner of the train), Mila Carter brings an enigmatic air to the much-celebrated beauty that is Countess Elena, Debbie Chazen is enjoyably blunt as Princess Dragomiroff and Rebecca Charles’ take on the highly strung devout companion – Greta Ohlsson – gains considerable laughs.

Jean-Baptiste Fillon is a rare source of easy likability in the piece as steward Michel, offset very nicely by Christie Kavanagh’s excellently brash and insufferable Helen Hubbard. Iniki Mariano and Rishi Rian succeed in inspiring the most mystery as the hush-hush Mary Debenham and the Colonel, and Paul Keating proves instantly unlikeable as the suspicious  Hector MacQueen – his dismissive air helped along by is mistreatment of the keen-to-please assistant (Simon Cotton). 

Movement director Leah Hausman gives transitions some style with the cast moving in slow motion, offering tableauxs of a sort which are visually striking. Ian William Galloway’s opening video design is clever in purpose, establishing a link to a previous murder, but falls short as Oliver Fenwick’s equally apt stark lighting design so obscures the video that the eerie impact is lost.

Possibly the most important quality of a whodunnit is to keep us guessing – and I can confirm that I had various theories and all of them were wrong when it came to this tale (yes, yes, it’s true; I’ve neither read the book nor seen the screen versions). That’s not just a compliment to Christie as originator, but also the outlandish characterisations of the cast and the stealthy approach to staging from director Lucy Bailey, too. That said, the production often favours broad strokes and humorous melodrama, losing key tension and impact in the process which seems remiss at times.

So, not as much genuine dramatic thrill as I’d like here, but the production is certainly entertaining  and enjoyable – worth a punt if you’re a Christie fan, but possibly not if you’re looking for edge-of-seat intensity.

Murder on the Orient Express is at the Grand Opera House, York until March 29th 2025 – more information and tickets can be found here.