BritBox UK is to bring Hugh Laurie’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, to subscribers this Spring.
The three-part drama was produced by Mammoth Screen and Agatha Christie Limited and commissioned by BritBox North America. Laurie, who also appears in the role of Dr. Nicholson, directed the series.
Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton star as naval officer Bobby Jones and “prototype It Girl” Frankie Derwent, with Jim Broadbent and Emma Thompson making cameo appearances in the first episode as Frankie’s parents, Lord and Lady Marcham.
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? opens with a fine Christie enigma: a man lies dying at the foot of a cliff, apparently the victim of an accidental fall; with his final breath, he utters the mysterious question of the title and promptly expires.
Some people – perhaps most people – might shrug at the impenetrable oddness of the words and move on with their lives.
But Bobby Jones and his childhood friend, Lady Frances “Frankie” Derwent, are not most people. They resolve to honour the dead man by deciphering, and then answering, his final question.