Deadly Suspicion

A star-studded cast brings Agatha Christie’s complex psychological drama to the screen.

- Caren Clark, Victoria Wilson

NEW PERIOD DRAMA

Ordeal By Innocence  

Easter Sunday, BBC1 HD, 9pm

Agatha Christie felt that her 1958 novel Ordeal by Innocence was one of her most satisfying works. The chilling mystery has as many red herrings and stunning twists as her Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot novels but it’s also a taut psychological thriller.

BBC1’s lavish three-part adaptation of the novel is set in the mid-1950s and sees Anna Chancellor play domineering Rachel Argyll, who, with her husband Leo, played by Bill Nighy, has adopted five troubled children.

When Rachel is murdered, her delinquent adopted son Jack (Anthony Boyle) is arrested but dies in prison before his trial. However, 18 months later, scientist Dr Arthur Calgary (Luke Treadaway) turns up at the Argyll home, Sunny Point, with an alibi that seems to exonerate Jack.

CRACKS IN THE FAMILY