All aboard for an Agatha Christie classic
Rolling into Newcastle with the new year comes Murder on the Orient Express. Michael Maloney tells David Whetstone about the show and the challenge of playing Poirot
After panto’s delightful daftness, what could be better than a murder mystery to cleanse the theatrical palate?
And if it’s Agatha Christie, undisputed mistress of the whodunit, that’s surely even better than better?
Fortuitously, first stop in 2025 for a new and much praised production of Murder on the Orient Express, which first appeared in book form in 1934, is Newcastle Theatre Royal.
And returning to the stage there as charismatic detective Hercule Poirot is Michael Maloney, a very fine actor who would appear to be having a ball.
“People do come out for an Agatha Christie show and we’ve had really good audiences for every performance, so it’s been going very well,” he says.
“But this is a production with a really good combination of all the important elements.
“It’s a great adaptation by Ken Ludwig (the much lauded American whose early hits included Lend Me a Tenor and Crazy for You) who was commissioned by the Agatha Christie estate.
“It contains a lot of humour to go with all the serious bits, which is wonderful. People have been laughing and it’s not that sort of nervous laughter you sometimes hear.
“And our director, Lucy Bailey, has created a really good version of the story which takes the genre of Agatha Christie thrillers a step forward, I believe.”
Inevitably, with a 90-year-old tale, there will be audience members for whom no guessing is involved. They know fine well who’s responsible for the killing on that famous train, halted by an avalanche.
But Michael says people familiar with the story have remarked to him that such is the freshness of this production they’ve been surprised at the climactic apportioning of blame.
That job, of course, falls to Poirot, Christie’s famous Belgian detective who has been a plum role for a clutch of famous actors.
Latest to fill his no doubt exquisitely cobbled shoes is Michael Maloney who was born in Suffolk and has brought many characters to life since his 1979 West End and TV debuts (he played a teenager in BBC drama Telford’s Change).
He has played two Conservative Prime Ministers, Edward Heath and John Major, and umpteen Shakespeare characters, and has proved his versatility on stage, screen, radio, audiobook, even in Bollywood films.
But Hercule Poirot… surely not a part to be undertaken lightly?
“I think the best thing is not to think you’re going to compete with the greats who have done it before because you’re setting yourself up to seem very arrogant and it never works,” says the latest Poirot.
“On stage, where you don’t have the benefit of a close-up, it has to be a different sort of performance to those on screen.
“And it always depends to a certain degree on the auditorium. We’ve played in 600- and 2,000-seat theatres but always you have to project a fair old bit and be expressive.
“Kenneth Branagh and David Suchet (past screen Poirots) have both been incredibly generous, saying good luck, and I’ve enjoyed their performances as I did those of Peter Ustinov and Albert Finney.”
Accents shouldn’t be a stumbling block for an experienced actor but Michael Maloney has put in the work. A Belgian accent, he suggests, sounds more French Canadian than French, less guttural in some utterances.
Poirot brings him back to the big stage after a longish break, from 2004 when he had to care for elderly parents and was acting as single parent to his daughter.
“Instead of the theatre I’d do TV work every now and again. It’s bittier and easier to fit around family pressures. But those are gone now my daughter’s grown up.
“This show is taking me away for 26 weeks and I’m enjoying it. It’s the first ever production of Murder on the Orient Express to tour England, Scotland and Ireland.
“The fact it’s never been done before is probably because the logistics have been too difficult.”
It’s set on a train, for one thing.
Michael credits designer Mike Britton for overcoming that particular obstacle in some style.
“You see the interior of the train divided into three separate compartments but you really do get the feel of a train and the luxury of a bygone era.”
The 15-strong company – “huge for a touring show” – took their first bow in Salford back in September and the production has been rolling ever since with no avalanche to impede it.
Michael Maloney bowed out of the theatre back in 2004, albeit temporarily, after playing Hamlet in a notable production for the late Japanese director, Yukio Ninagawa. One critic called him “supremely watchable”.
That production didn’t come to Newcastle but Michael’s no stranger to the city or the Theatre Royal.
In 1999 he appeared there with Peter Bowles in Peter Shaffer’s tense two-hander, Sleuth, and twice he was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company that used to arrive every year en masse.
“We had a fantastic time up there,” he recalls.
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“After being in Stratford for weeks we’d go to Newcastle and there would be stuff to do and places to have a drink.”
He came with the 1982 season of plays, taking the part of Ferdinand in The Tempest alongside Derek Jacobi, Alun Armstrong and a comparative youngster called Mark Rylance.
Then in 1991 he played Prince Henry in Henry IV Pt. 2 alongside Julian Glover and Robert Stephens.
Helen Mirren, Bob Peck, Antony Sher and Michael Gambon were also among those he trod the boards with in Newcastle, all fine actors from whom he says he learned a great deal.
Presumably others are now learning from him.
“This has really got me going again,” he says with enthusiasm. “I’ve no idea what I’ll be doing next but whatever anyone decides to offer me, I’ll have a look at it. You’ve got to keep going.”
Spoken like a real trouper!
Murder on the Orient Express runs in Newcastle from January 14 to 18, 2025. Tickets are on sale from the Theatre Royal website or call the box office on 0191 232 7010.