Alan Sawyer
House star Hugh Laurie is back.
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Laurie is hitting the quadruple credit scorecard as actor, writer, producer and director of a new mini-series adaptation of Agatha Christie’s acclaimed novel, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? The story was originally written in 1934, and is currently a three-part miniseries that originally aired on Britbox. It is available to stream now in the U.S. and is embedded below.
Like most all of Christie’s work, this a murder mystery case. In this particular tale, a young man named Bobby Jones comes across another man taking his last breaths. The man manages to let loose his dying words — “Why didn’t they ask Evans?”
The story then centers around Jones and his ladyfriend Lady Francesca “Frankie” Derwe as they try to unravel the mystery of that dying decree.
Laurie will be playing a supporting role, Dr. James Nicholson, in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?.
He had previously told Reuters that this was a project that he simply loved, “I would say the novel has been a passion of mine for a long time. The more I thought about it, the more I enjoyed the idea of trying to get what I thought was a sort of comic adventure spirit onto the screen.”
This adaptation was made originally for BritBox and was premiered with little fanfare, never airing on broadcast nor cable TV. The three episodes all were available to watch at the same time as well, further fanning its growing fandom.
Laurie did not indicate if he was interested in other novel adaptations but the Christie catalog offers a lot of opportunities. He could also create a universe that extends well beyond the source material, as Yellowstone is currently doing with 1883 and 1932.
“I felt this was a very precious thing to try and preserve and maybe in some places, go and explore a little further,” he said. “But I’m trying to be as faithful to the spirit of the thing as I could.”
