TV review

THE suspects are gathered in the drawing room at the instigation of Hercule Poirot. He intends to tell them the results of his investigation into the case of a woman, executed 14 years previously for poisoning her artist husband.

The fussy little Belgian detective plays the scene for all it's worth, pontificating and prevaricating until one suspect, Philip Blake, can stand it no longer.

"Don't you think you're milking it?" he asks with an air of irritation. "I wish someone would tell us the point of all this."

You half expect an indignant Poirot's waxed moustache to start whirling around like a plane propeller and for the man himself to self-combust with disgust.

But milking it is exactly what he's doing, like an overzealous milkmaid. He's making the most of his big moment. This is when his little grey cells go into overdrive as he lets everyone - suspects and viewers alike - have the benefit of his considerable sleuthing experience.

The naming-the-culprit scene is what we have come to expect from an Agatha Christie whodunit. In other ways, this latest TV Poirot isn't quite business as usual. The makers have gone back to the book, with Kevin Elyot's screenplay giving it a grittier and more realistic feel than recent Poirot mysteries. Instead of admiring the art deco settings and period costumes, you find yourself concentrating on the plot developments and relationships.

Five Little Pigs begins with the hanging of a woman. Caroline Craie has been found guilty of putting poison in a bottle of beer she served her husband.

Fourteen years later, her now grown-up daughter asks Poirot to find out if her mother was really guilty. "Psychology is your forte," she tells him, knowing that flattery will get her everywhere with this strange little man.

While Poirot goes around chatting up witnesses/suspects, the power plays that led to the poisoning are recalled in flashbacks filmed with the type of jittery, hand-held camerawork usually reserved for modern dramas.

This works well, not least because a formidable cast has been assembled as the suspects, among them Aidan Gillen from Queer As Folk, Rachael Stirling from Tipping The Velvet, Marc Warren from The Vice, and Gemma Jones from The Duchess Of Duke Street. Even smaller roles were cast to the hilt, including a spit and a cough as a defence barrister from Patrick Malahide. He tried to convince the jury the dead man had committed suicide. "Not one of my greatest successes," he conceded.

Poirot himself is played to perfection, as usual, by David Suchet in a fat suit. This detective may possess remarkable powers of deduction but is totally bereft of a sense of humour as he quizzes the five suspects. He bridles at being mistaken for French and clearly disapproves of some of the women's more forward behaviour.

Hardly surprising when faced by Elsa saying of her first meeting with artist Amyas: "As soon as I saw him, I knew I had to have him".

Amyas is as bad, telling Elsa that: "If I paint you, you realise I will have to make love to you". Presumably not at the same time.

Jack And The Beanstalk, York Grand Opera House

THIS is one for the kids, not the critics. Simon Barry's production is a workmanlike show that dutifully trots through the requirements of traditional pantomime without ever achieving what people on those TV property programmes define as "the wow factor".

It's a bit like someone has bought a DIY pantomime kit and assembled it without adding any personal touches. Only a belated England/Australia rugby joke - at the expense of Aussie Home And Away star Lynne McGranger, playing Witch Blackweed - adds a note of topicality among the stale Weakest Link gags.

None of that seemed to bother the youngsters in the audience, who were clapping along from the opening medley and proceeded to boo, cheer and laugh in all the right places.

McGranger's preening punk witch is pitted against Tonicha Jeronimo's daft Fairy Peagood, a dizzy Northern girl, in the age-old battle between good and evil. Their rivalry produces some good exchanges.

Stuart Wade plays Simple Simon as a cheeky schoolboy, an attitude sure to endear him to younger members of the audience. Paul Critchlow's underused Tilly Trott - "We're so poor, I have to go to KFC and lick other people's fingers" - has a wardrobe as big as her bottom, but precious little to do apart from change her costumes.

Daisy the cow is fun, but I confess to finding Andrea Poyser's hearty Jack intensely irritating. Judging by the way she was clinging precariously to the beanstalk at the end of the first act, she couldn't climb the stairs let along a giant plant stem.

Steve Pratt

* Runs until January 4. Tickets 0870 606 3595.