Four and Twenty Blackbirds

I have always been a huge fan of Poirot and of Agatha Christie, and alongside The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, Wasp's Nest and The Chocolate Box, Four and Twenty Blackbirds is one of the better short story adaptations. It is a simple story, but still very clever and elegant in its simplicity. The writing still has humour, intelligence and suspense, the music is hauntingly beautiful and the adaptation with the evocative atmosphere, beautiful locations and sets and elegant costumes is very well made as usual. David Suchet is impeccable, and he as always is well supported by Hugh Fraser, Phillip Jackson and Pauline Moran. The support cast are solid, with nobody weak but nobody quite up the standard of acting set by the four leads. EastEnders fans look out for John Bardon(aka Jim Branning) as a Lavatory man. All in all, a great episode and one of my favourites of not just the short story adaptations but also of the series. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Another excellent episode in a series that consistently sets a high bar. The acting is first class and the setting and clothes capture the period perfectly. Good to see Hastings taking so much interest in the Test Match score. England versus Australia and England's bowlers doing well for a change. Too much time spent by some reviewers trying to show the producers made a mistake with England's competitor and not enough effort made to listen to the dialogue.

This was one of the Poirot episodes that required a lot of padding by the screenwriters. The original story itself was quite basic: at dinner one evening, Poirot hears a waitress make a chance remark that a regular customer had ordered a meal that was very different from his usual tastes. A few days later he hears from his dinner companion that that same habitual customer from the restaurant had happened to die that very evening, apparently by accident. Poirot's curiosity is aroused, and by talking with a series of acquaintances of the dead man, and calling on his knowledge of human nature, he is able to determine that the man's death was not all it appeared to be.

A simple enough story, and lacking some of the detail that would make it appealing to television viewers. So, the writers added in some considerable amount of background of the dead man's artistic career and family, along with a series of references to contemporary forensic science (faint traces of CSI!), cricket, and even a passing reference to Raffles, a fictional mystery-solving character from the 1930's. Nothing wrong with any of that. Didn't really add to the essential story, but didn't take away from it either. All in all, an episode that was enjoyable but not very memorable.

For some reason when I was younger, I ignored Agatha Christie stories. In the past few years, I've discovered them from borrowing audio books from the library and greatly enjoyed them - which let me to start reading as well. And so I was delighted to find out about the Poirot series. The few I've seen that I'd read were true to her stories, and those that I'd not read always left me impressed with her writing and tight plots, and left me guessing until the end "who dun it". One really couldn't miss a minute of it.

Therefore I expected so much more from this episode. In fact, until I looked at the other reviews, I really did not think it was based on a 'real' Agatha Christie story. I thought it was written by someone else just using the character. It was just too simplistic and obvious. But as always, the settings are beautiful, although I was still left very disappointed with the plot line. That said, I still have hope for other episodes in the series.

When Poirot is having dinner at a restaurant the waitress draws his attention to a old man, an artist with a strict routine.

He eats there on a certain day and has a particular set of dishes but recently he has varied the days he attends and the menu which piques Poirot's little grey cells.

The old artist is soon found dead from a fall, he was an eccentric who did not allow his paintings to be sold. Now he is dead, the paintings are valuable.

Suspicion falls on his twin brother, they both fell out some years earlier over a woman and not spoken since then but he too also dies after suffering a long period of ill health.

As Poirot states, there is a significant lack of suspects in this matter so the suspect is rather obvious. What we do get is Hastings being interested in the cricket score which is a running theme in this episode. The director also pays great attention to period detail with money spent on art production and extras such as the pier scenes.