Dragon Review: Death on the Nile – Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Published on: 15 Jan, 2026
Updated on: 15 Jan, 2026

Helen Katamba (Annabelle Pennington), Camilla Anvar (Rosalie Otterbourne), Mark Hadfield (Hercule Poirot), Glynis Barber (Salome Otterbourne) and Terence Wilton (Septimus Troy)

By Ferenc Hepp

Now that our Christmas lights have been safely stored in the attic for another year, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre is back to its regular programming.

To kick off 2026, Fiery Angel Productions bring the Agatha Christie classic, Death On The Nile, to the Guildford stage this week. A sweeping mystery of love, money, jealousy and betrayal, this play is one of Christie’s best- loved and most famous works.

Mark Hadfield as Hercule Poirot

Hercule Poirot (Mark Hadfield) investigates the murder of a glamorous young heiress during her exotic honeymoon cruise down the Nile, and becomes embroiled in a poisonous love triangle amidst a group of deeply suspicious fellow passengers.

Hadfield has a lot of the characteristics which Sir David Suchet famously showed on screen. The accent is well maintained, and the mannerisms are perfectly reminiscent of Poirot, keeping calm amongst the chaos that ensues.

The stage design by Mike Britton and the lighting design by Oliver Fenwick are quite dark and atmospheric, and Britton uses two levels with sliding wooden panels to represent two decks and cabins of the ship. This works very well, and also aids the smooth and quick set changes.

Apart from murder mystery, there is also a lot of humour throughout, much of it provided by Glynis Barber as Salome Otterbourne, a romance novelist, who tries to find a match for her daughter, Rosalie (Camilla Anvar), but ends up outrageously flirting with Septimus Troy (Terence Wilton), an aged actor missing his major roles from his early career.

They have fabulous chemistry between them and are a perfect match for each other. The wealthy airess, Linnet Ridgeway (Libby Alexandra-Cooper) has recently married Simon Doyle (Nye Occomore), ex-fiance of her former friend, Jacqueline De Bellefort (Esme Hough).

This is Alexandra-Cooper’s professional debut, and there is some scope to further develop and add dimensions to her characterisation of Linnet, but Occomore and Hough present an accomplished execution of their characters and the tension between the three is clear and intriguingly worrying.

Mark Hadfield (Hercule Poirot), Esme Hough (Jacqueline de Bellefort), Nye Occomore (Simon Doyle) and Libby Alexandra-Cooper (Linnet Ridgeway)

The style of the piece is naturalistic, but periodically, Lucy Bailey’s direction does call for some slow-motion, stylised movements, and these fit comfortably within the narrative.

The murder occurs just before the interval, and we see all the passengers as silhouettes behind the slatted wooden panels, with the majority of the second half concentrating on Poirot’s investigation, and the typical calling together of all the suspects so that the actual events of the night can be gradually revealed by the famous detective.

Bob Barrett, as Colonel Race, Poirot’s long standing friend plays quite a bit part in this, and also provides a type of narration, reminding us that something always happens when his friend is on a trip and all stories end up with Hercule revealing the guilty parties at the end.

I particularly enjoyed not knowing the story beforehand (perhaps I was one of the few?) and trying to work out who ‘did it’, along with Poirot, and the realisation that it was ‘so obvious’, once the truth was revealed.

As Poirot said at the end: “It was a memorable trip.” And this is a memorable production, for all the right reasons.

Death On The Nile runs until Saturday, January 17 and tickets are available on the theatre’s website or call 01483 440000.