Friday, 15 August
8.30pm

Tonight we continue repeat screenings of Agatha Christie: Poirot. In After the Funeral, solicitor Gilbert Entwhistle (Robert Bathurst) asks his friend Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) to join him in the English countryside where members of the disconnected Abernethie clan are gathered for the funeral of Richard Abernethie the day after his cremation.

In the congregation are Richard's widowed sister-in-law Helen (Geraldine James) and her ne'er do well son George (Michael Fassbender); his niece Rosamund (Fiona Glasscott) and husband Michael (Julien Ovenden) - both actors, and Rosamund's unmarried sister Susannah (Lucy Punch), who does good works for the church.

Also there, is another sister-in-law Maude (Anna Calder-Marshall), wife of Timothy (Benjamin Whitrow), who is too ill himself to attend.

And Richard's youngest sister Cora (Monica Dolan), a stranger to the younger members of the family, who is excited to be back at the family seat of Enderby for the hearing of Richard's will by their solicitor Entwhistle.

"I knew Richard had intended George to be the sole heir," Entwhistle tells Poirot but, gathered in the Enderby library, the family is stunned to hear that George has been disinherited, and the proceeds of the sale of Enderby are to be divided equally between Timothy, Helen, Rosamund, Susannah and Cora.

Then Cora further astounds the group by announcing "It's been hushed-up very well, but Richard was murdered, wasn't he?"
Before Poirot can get to question Cora - the day after the funeral - she is brutally hacked to death by an intruder.

Poirot says of the family "They lie very well monsieur" as he sets out to reveal who killed Cora.