Evans Is The Last Word From A Dead Man's Mouth:Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

I didn't watch Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (ITVX) because of the title. Honestly, I didn't. There's a lot of us Evanses about so you can't just read, watch, and listen to everything that involves an Evans. There's just not enough time.

One place where you can find more Evanses than most other places is, of course, Wales and it's in Wales that the story begins. Young Bobby Jones (Will Poulter), who I can't help thinking must be named for the seven time major winner who was at the peak of his powers when Christie wrote the novel in 1934, is caddying on a links course for Dr Alwyn Thomas (Conleth Hill) when they spot a body that has fallen off a cliff and on to the shore below.

As Thomas has a wooden leg, bad time in Passchendaele apparently, it's the younger man who climbs down to see if he can help. Before dying, the unfortunate man (Leon Ockenden) just has time to say, somewhat cryptically, "why didn't they ask Evans?". 

It's a question I consider all the time but who, in this instance, is Evans? Who are 'they'? What is it they did not ask Evans and why did they not ask it? On the dead man's body, Jones finds a sepia photo of a young blonde woman and a piscine key fob. These appear to be clues to both the man's identity and the man's fate. As does an early scene of a woman swatting a wasp. At the very least, the wasp swat must be emblematic of something or why include it?

Adding to the suspicion, it's not long before the cad like Roger Bassington-ffrench (Daniel Ings) appears at the scene of death. Bassington-ffrench is as eccentric as his bizarrely spelt name suggests but there's an even more sinister figure in the form of an austere and imposing bowler hatted man (Nicholas Ashbury) who keeps appearing in the most unlikely of places. That's clearly not a coincidence.

Frankie Derwent (Lucy Boynton) is a beautiful society girl who Bobby looks at lovingly, almost as if in awe or her. Their backgrounds are decidedly different, Frankie rides around on horseback and travels first class on the train and Bobby - a vicar's son who dresses like one of the Peaky Blinders and sells used cars and spins waltzers for a living - travels third class, but they seem to have great respect, possibly even love, for each other.

For some reason she calls him Steve. It's not just a history and an affection they share. They also share a desire to solve the mystery that has presented itself to them. So, with the help of Bobby's friend Knocker (Jonathan Jules) - a man who'd happily sell you a car without an engine - and Cardiff doctor Dr George Arbuthnot (Joshua James), they settle on a cunning plan. A plan that will inolve Frankie inveigling herself into the Bassington-ffrench household.

There she meets with Roger's brother Henry (a rather daunting and very good Miles Jupp) and Henry's wife Sylvia (Amy Nuttall). Henry's hopelessly addicted to morphia and him and Roger do not seem to enjoy a friendly relationship. Roger, though he clearly doesn't trust Frankie, seems to be somewhat taken by her.

Is he romantically interested or is she simply a distraction from his family woes? Dr James Nicholson (Hugh Laurie, also the director of the show) is called in to treat Henry but Dr Nicholson's wife, Moira (Maeve Dermody) confesses that she believes Dr Nicholson is trying to kill her. There are now many suspects and it can sometimes get a bit confusing but one thing is for certain and that is that somebody, we're not sure who, is trying to get Bobby out of the way.

Someone wants him gone. Having promised Knocker he'd go into business with him, Bobby turns down the offer of what appears to be somewhat dubious work in Buenos Aires and stays in Britain - the action moves between Wales, Hampshire, and London - to try and work out just what the hell is going on. I must admit that, at times, I certainly had no idea.

It's a world of stately homes, vintage cars, manicured lawns, scullery maids, cravats, pocket watches, fountain pens, jazz, rural church services, pleasantly plump policemen riding around on bicycles, and people who call each other 'old puffin'. It's also a world where the etiquettes of suicide are discussed quite casually. It's an Agatha Christie world as imagined by Hugh Laurie, basically.

In trying to solve the mystery, Frankie and Bobby are thrown into a maelstrom of faked car crashes, suicides (or apparent suicides), funerals, sanatoriums, crow scarers (it's remarked upon that the collective noun for crows is a murder), kedgeree for dinner, and having to lie about being a Christian scientist. Frankie, specifically, soon finds herself being investigated as much as she is doing the investigating.

It's beautifully shot, there's a good joke about how easy it is to find an Evans in Wales, and there are digs at both the Daily Mail (always pleasing) and London (Frankie:; "it;'s full of people but there's nobody there) and there's a great ensemble cast which includes Alistair Petrie as Bobby's father, the Reverend Richard Jones, and Jim Broadbent and Emma Thompson as Lord and Lady Marcham. Although the appearance of the latter two feels a little perfunctory, a tad performative, almost as if Laurie is flexing his own pulling power.

More satisfactorily, Paul Whitehouse crops up as the landlord of a pub called The Angler's Arms. Which, as a notoriously keen fisherman, was no doubt a pleasing role for him. Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? is, of course, a whodunnit but it's also a class conscious (very class conscious) drama that is an enjoyable watch.

Though it is something of a slow burner. I didn't find it particularly tense or moving until quite near the end but when it got there it was worth the wait and worth the work. It took the viewer to some pretty dark places and it also got surprisingly chilly in the final episode. Of course, being Agatha Christie, the loose ends were all tied up nicely. All, except, one question that lurks at the back of my mind. Why didn't they ask Evans?