They include Lichfield Court, Richmond, Surrey, 'Shrubs Wood' in Chalfont St. The production design is as good as always (notice the homage to artist Tamara de Lempicka in the painting in the board room), and the locations work well. That is quite an achievement.)ĭirecting, production design, locations, soundtrackĭevenish's direction is competent, and he does a decent job of trying to bring out the nursery rhyme connection in the opening scenes outside Morley's office, together with Gunning's soundtrack (which can be found on the CD). I just want to point out that Exton manages to keep Poirot's denouement almost intact, word by word. There are also some minor changes and obviously some parts of dialogue are shortened down or deleted, but mainly, the plot is kept intact and the adaptation is faithful to its source material. Adams, a friend of the real Miss Sainsbury Seale is removed (she was unnecessary anyway). Raikes and his link to Miss Olivera has been removed. Helen/Gerda becomes Blunt's secretary rather than cousin (a sensible change) and she is the one who 'catches' Frank in the garden with the gun, since Mr. The attempts at Blunt's life are sensibly removed (again, unnecessary since the whole spy plot is removed). Chapman, which actually provides Poirot with the idea for a clue (marriage certificates - we see him visit Somerset House afterwards). There's an added scene with a different Mr.

Merton (in accordance with the deletion of the spy subplot). Poirot's valet George is obviously removed (he hadn't been introduced by this point in the series' chronology), and so is Mrs.

Chapman subplot is wisely removed (that seemed way too unbelievable). Reilly, and his patients, are removed (they were nothing more than red herrings anyway, so it's an acceptable way of shortening the storyline). He adds an opening sequence set twelve years earlier in India (including scenes with Blunt, Gerda and Sainsbury Seale, and a theatre production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (Sainsbury Seale mentions in the novel that she was part of a production of Shakespeare's As You Like It, so this addition seems very sensible - and it's a good example of Exton's faithfulness to Christie's written word). The setting is obviously moved from 1940 to the mid-30s (August 1937 to be exact), but the novel never explicitly states the year, so that's not really a change.

It was adapted for television by Clive Exton and directed by Ross Devenish (who also did The Mysterious Affair at Styles).Įxton's script stays impressively close to the source material, as has become the norm by this point, but he makes some understandable changes. This adaptation was based on the novel One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, first published in 1940. We've now come to the final episode of Series Four and the fifth feature-length adaptation of the series so far.

One two buckle my shoe poirot