Towards Zero

Review by Daniel Tessier

The latest Agatha Christie TV production, Towards Zero is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, published in 1944 but set around ten years earlier. Comprising three hour-long episodes, it's a drawn-out but ultimately successful murder mystery. Writer Rachel Bennette takes significant liberties with the source material to create a tense drama populated by some of the most unlikeable characters you've ever looked forward to being murdered.

While the moneyed characters are almost universally awful, the working classes are far more palatable. In either case, this is a fine cast, boasting both well known faces with years in the business and newer faces who are making their mark. The legendary Anjelica Huston (Medium, Smash, The Mists of Avalon) affects a sharply accurate cut-glass accent as the Lady Tressilian, the elderly and bedridden matriarch of the Tressilian-Strange family, who invites her extended repertoire for an incredibly uncomfortable weekend at her seaside home of Gull's Point.

The man of the house, such as he is, is Neville Strange, a tennis superstar played with oleaginous glee by Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House, Surface, Wilderness). Neville is just as obnoxious as you'd expect a handsome, landed celebrity sportsman to be, but has been knocked down a peg or two thanks to a humiliating divorce case. His first wife, Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland – Black Doves, A Thousand Blows) caught him with his beautiful young mistress Kay (Mimi Keene – Sex Education, EastEnders), and engineered a proof to ensure a successful – and very public – divorce case. In an obvious recipe of disaster, Neville, his ex-wife and new wife are all invited to the same weekend.

The stage is set for a tense meeting of family, friends and associates. Unfortunately, most of the first episode is spent dealing with the divorce and its fallout and the gradual process of getting everyone to Gull's Point. It takes an absolute age for the story to get going, with the first murder not occurring until nearly halfway through the serial's three-hour runtime. Which is frustrating, because once it does get going, it's a gripping and twisting story with some excellent performances, as the various conniving characters reveal their secrets.

Examining the various guests is Inspector Leach, played with world-weary anger by Matthew Rhys (Brothers & Sisters, Perry Mason, The Americans). In the novel itself, Leach is a relatively minor character, the nephew of Superintendent Battle, one of Christie's recurring protagonists and the main force behind solving the mystery. For this version, Leach, Battle and the traumatised Angus MacWhirter are composited into a single character; the suicidal, short-tempered, but fundamentally noble Leach, plagued by guilt and horrific memories from the Great War. It's an excellent performance by Rhys, although it's surprising Bennette didn't have him play the better known Battle. On the other hand, this gives the writer more leeway in creating her own lead.

The further cast includes Clark Peters (The Wire, Person of Interest) as the sombre yet classy elderly solicitor Mr Treves; Anjana Vasan (Black Mirror, We Are Lady Parts) as Lady Tressilian's formal companion, Mary Aldin; Jack Farthing (Blandings, Poldark) as estranged, troubled nephew Thomas Royde; Adam Hugill (Sherwood, The Watch) as the secretive Mac; and Khalil Ben Gharbia (Skam France) as Kay's old flame, Louis Morel. The cast is excellent throughout, with Rhys, Keene and Hyland standing out as particularly impressive.

As we've come to expect from BBC period dramas, Towards Zero is a beautiful production, with exquisite costuming, opulent sets and some stunning location filming in Bristol and Devon, including at Christie's old writing haunt, Burgh Island. Sam Yates provides strong direction, although it's not always enough to enliven the longer, talkier scenes. It's also an astonishingly sexual production, with some extremely steamy scenes that push the limits of what BBC1 is allowed to show.

Yet it never quite gets over the drag at the start, which is a major hindrance to an otherwise strong and complex historical mystery with a powerful and impressive cast.