Brighton Year-Round 2026
Death on the Nile
Fiery Angel in Association with Agatha Christie Limited, David and Hannah Mirvish, Fiery Dragons Tilted Productions
Genre: Adaptation, Comedic, Costume, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Ken Ludwig’s fresh adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton directed by Lucy Bailey till April 4. It’s Bailey’s third Christie to tour here, and stamped with the quality that makes hers the best by far of recent years. As ever, there’s brilliant tweaks. Here though, Ludwig has not so much tweaked as rethought, reframed, redefined.
A first-rate night at the theatre, and Esme Hough is a delight.
Review
Mark Hadfield’s Hercule Poirrot spots two lovers intwined between lampposts. It sets him thinking; there’s quite a few fourth-wall moments like that. If you’ve read Death on the Nile, or seen the film, then see this: because nothing’s quite the same. The core plot is intact, but this sumptuous production’s more morally comfortable yet more unsettling. The tragedy, Poirrot announces, is still love, but there’s new love affairs to cheer us. And unlike Christie, no victim’s innocent. Ken Ludwig’s fresh adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton directed by Lucy Bailey till April 4. It’s Bailey’s third Christie to tour here, and stamped with the quality that makes hers the best by far of recent years. As ever, there’s brilliant tweaks. Here though, Ludwig has not so much tweaked as rethought, reframed, redefined.
Hadfield’s twinkly Franglais-prone showman Poirrot also narrates, Hadfield relishing “Shakespeare was quite good” quips. His Belgian is lighter on his wits, amused by life: though with a flickering feeling for one character his youth could have fallen for.
Linnet Ridgeway (adamantine Libby Alexandra-Cooper) is a thoroughly imperious daughter of a callous benefactor; she continues his tradition. Her friend Jacqueline de Bellefort (a smouldering though thoroughly British Esme Hough) introduces her Adonis-but-dim lover Simon Doyle (an appealing, easily-spooked reading in Nye Occomore’s hands), to beg for a job. Jacqueline has no taste for riches, but her beloved has and she’ll do anything for him. It works: Simon is taken on but Linnet wants him for herself and gets her way. Alexandra-Cooper’s all steely entitlement, though Hough dominates scenes with wild trigger-swings and a labile intensity mixed with sudden cool. You and Poirrot want to take care of this loving, unstable woman. Indeed another woman does. Now Jacqueline pursues the couple on their honeymoon down the Nile in a luxury steamer. Carrying a museum-hired Sarcophagus back to its home base after Linnet secured its loan. So the whole party seen first in London travels with them. Poirrot’s included, and his “I’m from MI5” friend Colonel Race (Bob Barrett, a colonel to his kernel, though surely you don’t proclaim you’re MI5). And an assortment of people also disgruntled with high-handed Linnet, but attached to her through benefaction or hope.
Faults with the original Christie, Ludwig’s discarded. A litany of bodies stretched credulity. Ludwig lights on a more compact, ingenious drama, lasting two hours fifteen minutes. An attempted killing is made more manageable. A crucial plot-point some find improbable is retained, but another credible one discarded by Ludwig that I find now more incredible. In addition to fourth-walling, there’s nods and winks to Poirrot’s methods, which everyone jokes about. There’s even a reference back to Bailey’s last production and that unpleasantness on the Orient Express.
There’s also a complete reconfiguration of characters, some repurposed, some deleted, some added. Two burgeoning lovers have parents to reckon with. Dependable Rosalie Otterbourne (Camilla Anvar, telegraphing warm exasperation, oppressed on one side, frustrated on the other) is keen on shy budding doctor Ramses Praed (Nicholas Prasad, adding cubits as his character unfolds). He’s a perpetual disappointment to his archaeologist and curator father Atticus Praed (in Howard Gossington, a hauteur slowly humbled). Who has a grudge against the Ridgeways. Whilst Salome Otterbourne (deliciously OTT Glynis Barber) has abandoned novels and painting to be an actor. And pushes her daughter towards or away as occasion demands. But she’s propelled in her turn by her gauche yet shrewd daughter to another disgruntled investor in the Ridgeway franchise, the grand actor Septimus Troy (Terence Wilton, gloriously Wolfit-hammy), who’s surprisingly charmed. And there’s indefatigable best friend of Linnet (another?): pestering Annabelle Pennington (Helen Katamatra, breathing sly intrigue) whom Race is interested in. And who keeps pursuing Linnet to sign documents. The ensemble is augmented by David Boyle, Max Dinnen, Nadia Shash.
Mike Britton’s atmospherically cloistered two-tier set first does service as a museum interior, but with a few props including a gold sarcophagus, it mostly becomes a two-tier deck, with rooms revealed after slats melt away. There’s upper and lower bedrooms with a slick, pleasurable sense of the kind of set used in Murder on the Orient Express. The same claustrophobic prison-cell effect cages the action. Lit with some magic (water reflections, subtle spotlighting and lamps particularly) by Oliver Fenwick, the whole exudes first-rate production values, as expected in a Bailey Christie. Mic Pool’s sound is deployed as shock and only his localised Nile effects suggests we’re not in some fantastical prison: which in effect we are.
It’s slick certainly, but does it convince in its reconfigured state? One sound caveat aside, Ludwig makes it more believable, leaner, with two new satisfying romances. And with less sorrow for the now rather unpleasant victim and pity elsewhere. There’s strong performances throughout, and Hough is a standout. It’s enormously entertaining, with a re-enactment in the denouement wittily riffing on techniques seen in (say) Beyond Paradise. Perhaps – Hough always aside – there’s less emotive charge, and the drama is a touch more muted: but this is a first-rate night at the theatre, and Hough is a delight.
Movement Director Liam Steel Casting Director Helena Palmer, Creative Associate Ashley D Polasek, Associate Director Lucy Whitehouse, Costume Supervisor Sarah Holland, Props Supervisor Sharon Foley, WHAM Designer Elizabeth Marini.
Fight Director Philip d’Orleans, Dialect Coach Edna Sharpe
Production Managers Lee Batty and Andy Fox, CSM Sian Wiggins, DSM Matthew Phin, ASM Tom Maries.
