Why Didn't They Ask Evans
                                                                                              
Director: Hugh Laurie
Year: 2022
Rating: 7.0
This is the third version I have seen of the 1934 Agatha Christie novel of the same name. All three are quite decent. It is a complicated plot made more complicated by the scriptwriters. And all three are different enough from each other to make it interesting. There is the 1980 two-parter (which was the first TV adaptation of Christie), a 90-minute one in the Miss Marple TV series and this one. The Miss Marple one with Julia McKenzie went off the book quite a bit but then in the book, there is no Miss Marple. The scriptwriter managed to squeeze her in and it works fine. Miss Marple helping the two young amateur detectives find the killer and find love.



This is a four parter of 45 minutes each. It stays very close to the book other than adding a very scary professional killer in a bowler. Christie names her male protagonist Bobby Jones after the famous golfer, I assume, and we first see him on the links as a caddie. He hears a scream and finds a man who has fallen off of a steep cliff. Bobby rushes down to him and only hears him say before dying "Why didn't they ask Evans?". He mentions this to Lady Francis, a friend from childhood. Curious. What could it mean. Bobby is then offered a job in Argentina and when he declines, someone tries to poison him. The two of them team up to find out what is going on and who is Evans. Directed by Hugh Laurie who also appears in it, it is fairly entertaining and both leads - Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton - are appealing.