The Yours Members site has all the latest from our newest issue of Yours magazine, including exclusive celebrity interviews like this chat with Hugh Laurie on Why Didn't They Ask Evans...
When actor-director Hugh Laurie was casting his production of Agatha Christie’s Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? for ITV, there was only one woman for the role of the eccentric and very posh Lady Masham, mother of amateur sleuth Lady Frankie Derwent, Dame Emma Thompson.
When Emma was awarded a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame in 2010, it was Hugh who MC’ed the proceedings, telling the assembled crowd how proud he was of her, his former love and great friend. Little wonder, then, that she didn’t hesitate when he offered her the role.
“She was kind enough to come along and put on eccentric clothing for the day and just be very eccentric,” says Hugh. “It was very enjoyable.” Written in 1934, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? is one of Agatha Christie’s most fiendishly clever plots – a kind of cryptic puzzle.
It is Hugh Laurie’s favourite Christie whodunnit so adapting the book, directing the TV production and also appearing as a sinister medic really was a labour of love.
“How it came about was a bit of luck really,” says Hugh. “I actually met some people from the Agatha Christie estate, one of her descendants in fact, James Pritchard, to talk about playing a role in an adaption of a different novel. And in the course of it, I just happened to mention that Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?’ was my favourite. It has one of the most spine-tingling revelations of any of her stories and still gives me the shivers. He conceded and I started to write it!
“I dreamt of doing a sort of Alfred Hitchcock approach. He was always known as the master of suspense, but there’s a good three-quarters of Hitchcock’s films which are comic; there’s a comic spirit to them, a lightness and a wit to them."
Read the full interview on the Yours Members site.
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? ITV1, Easter Sunday and Monday, and Tues April 11. Catch up on ITV Hub