Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton lead the cast in Hugh Laurie’s Agatha Christie adaptation of Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
They chat about why it’s worth a watch, who they’ve been lucky enough to act alongside and what it’s like to work with Hugh Laurie.
Do all actors want to be part of an Agatha Christie mystery at some point?
Lucy Boynton: One hundred per cent. Since doing Murder On The Orient Express I have become such a fan of Christie’s writing.
She writes such brilliantly crisp, intelligent characters but always with that British dry sense of humour.
I’m always drawn to her literature and then, with Hugh Laurie adapting, this was pretty undeniable.
Will Poulter: Certainly, as a Brit, I feel very honoured to have got the chance and, yes, it feels like something of a rite of passage. We had a blast doing it.
I love that your characters in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, Bobby and Frankie, aren’t detectives. They’re ordinary people caught way in over their heads…
LB: The audience is in line with Frankie and Bobby in that we’re all unravelling the mystery in real time. They’re not the stealthiest sleuths in town but that makes it more fun because there’s a chaotic element and a certain level of unpredictability about them.
The mystery kicks off when Bobby finds a dying man at the bottom of a steep cliff whose final words are: ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’ Would that stir your curiosity?
WP: Some of those cliff locations were a little bit nerve-racking and the ground was a little bit looser underfoot than I would have liked!
But that’s Will showing and not so much Bobby, who is a good deal braver than me. But I can imagine myself in that scenario, yeah, and if someone’s dying words are directed right at you and there’s a question mark on the end then it’s sort of impossible to not want to find some sense of closure around that.
Hugh Laurie is the writer and director. Did he live up to expectations?
LB: He’s every bit the kind of dry wit he conveys in his work and that you hope he is.
What was it like to work with British acting royalty?
WP: Doing a scene opposite Paul Whitehouse – that was like bucket list stuff. He was so funny that I didn’t know how I was going to get through each scene.
It was this dichotomy of feeling excited to work with Paul but also dreading holding the crew up because I was laughing too much.
LB: It was such an education. Poulter and I would stand and watch Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson and Patrick Barlow really unpacking a scene and testing the boundaries of where it can go.
We’re all just gathered around the monitors watching with glee as it continues to unravel.
Did you guess whodunnit?
WP: It caught me by surprise. Hugh told me about how the hairs on the back of his neck and on his arms stood on end when the murderer was revealed.
It’s actually impossible to guess but it’s amazing all the same.
LB: I think that is the joy of being at the mercy of an Agatha Christie story. She’s always going to make you think that you’re on the right track and then things suddenly take a sharp turn and you’re in completely unfamiliar, potentially terrifying, territory.
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is on BritBox from April 14.
