Ordeal By Innocence
Bill Nighy and Morven Christie on their star-studded adaptation of Agatha Christie’s twisty thriller…
EASTER Sunday / BBC1 We love a good Bank Holiday whodunit here at TV Times, so I was delighted that we got the chance to interview the cast of this lavish three-part Agatha Christie adaptation. Starring Bill Nighy, Luke Treadaway, Morven Christie and Anna Chancellor, it’s about a murder in a country house. My money’s on the butler…
Agatha Christie’s 1958 novel Ordeal by Innocence was one of her own personal favourites, and it’s not hard to see why.
It has just as many red herrings and brilliant shocks as her
Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot mysteries, but also takes the form of a dark psychological thriller that explores the twisted secrets of a deeply troubled family.
BBC1’S sumptuous three-part adaptation of the story is set in the mid-1950s and sees Anna Chancellor play wealthy but domineering Rachel Argyll. When Rachel is viciously murdered, her son Jack (Anthony Boyle), one of her five adopted children, is arrested for the crime and then dies in prison.
But after scientist Dr Arthur Calgary
(Luke Treadaway) turns up 18 months later with an alibi that seems to exonerate Jack, the finger of suspicion points at the rest of the traumatised household.
TV Times took Bill Nighy, 68, who plays Rachel’s widower, Leo, and Morven Christie, 36, who plays the Argylls’ loyal housekeeper, Kirsten Lindstrom, in for questioning to find out more…
what can you tell us about your characters?
Bill: Leo’s an amateur Egyptologist and hasn’t got any money but his wife has, which makes him look shifty. He’s the nominal head of this rather strange house and his five adopted children have very shaky pasts, which is handy because they can all look very guilty for long periods of time!
Morven: Kirsten joined the family as a foundling to help them out with the first child they adopted, Mary [Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson], and she’s stayed on as housekeeper. The kids are all grown up but her role as a carer still gives her purpose. I’ve played a lot of strong, opinionated, contemporary characters recently [in dramas The A Word and The Replacement] but Kirsten has an innocence and vulnerability and she’s like the audience’s eyes.
How does the family react when dr Calgary arrives and they all come under suspicion?
Bill: Revisiting the murder explodes the household. The relationships within the house are very complicated and there are some strong feelings on the loose. Hopefully the audience will bounce around wondering who is guilty and be completely convinced it must be him or her. Agatha Christie was very good at that. Morven: Yes, they’re a horrible family and they’ve all got reasons why it could have been them. Much as they want to put it behind them, they all still have questions that weren’t answered.
They’re all afraid of opening that can of worms, but at the same time it wasn’t settled. does this feel darker than other agatha Christie adaptations? Bill: Yes, I think so. There’s a degree of psychological drama going on so it’s not just about wondering, ‘Is it Mrs Whatshername in the library?’ It’s pretty dark stuff! are you agatha Christie fans? Morven: Yes, everyone loves mysteries, whodunits and coming up with conclusions. That’s why the novels have endured, but also the characters are always really well defined – they’re not mushy, they’re sharp characters.
Bill: I discovered the books when I was young and read all of
them and then gave them to my daughter [actress Mary Nighy, now 33, with former partner Diana Quick] when she was about 16 or 17 and she just went through them, which was very satisfying to see. Whodunits are irresistible to each generation and there’s so much nostalgia for the period.
The clothes of the late 1940s and 1950s just look so great. After that, I think everything went downhill, particularly for men!
what was it like filming at the ardgowan estate in scotland, which stood in for the argyll family’s home, sunny point?
Bill: It was beautiful. I didn’t experience anything supernatural there but I heard some rumours. Morven: I didn’t see anything odd either, but the owner told me some stories and it’s a spooky building with a creepy nursery that has swinging shutters, bare floorboards and a solitary rocking horse in the middle of the floor! It’s amazing, though, because there are secret passages and hidden doorways, so there’s an idea of different worlds existing within one building. It adds so much to the drama.
Whodunits are just irresistible to each generation and there’s so much nostalgia
for the period
BILL NIGHY