Britbox: “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” starring Will Poulter

Hugh Laurie, who starred for years in the medical drama “House,” has written/directed something so elegant it may well have been called “Manor House.” Instead, it’s called “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?”, and it is available for your Anglophile eyes on Britbox.

Based on the 1934 Agatha Christie mystery, the action begins in a tiny Welsh village, where Bobby Jones (“Garden of the Gods” mega-star Will Poulter, he of the quizzical eyebrows) is caddying for Alwyn Thomas, the village doctor (Conleth Hill). They hear a gunshot, look over a cliff on the course where they are playing, and see a man lying on the shore below. Bobby scrambles down the cliff, where the poor fellow, taking his last breath, whispers “Why didn’t they ask Evans?” and expires. Another gentleman named Roger Worthington-Ffrench, spelled with two “F’s” (played by Daniel Ings) mysteriously shows up on the shore, professes not to know the deceased, wags his equally quizzical (but bushier) eyebrows and moves off.

This sets up a chain of events whereby Bobby and his friend Lady Francis (Lucy Boynton), aka “Frankie,” the daughter of the local noble, try and track down the real killer and figure out who the deuce Evans is. (This is Wales so everyone is named Evans.) The search takes them to the village carnival; the local chapel for which Bobby’s father (Alistair Petrie) serves as reverend and Bobby periodically serves as organist; a psych hospital; and several sumptuous mansions. Veddy BYT (bright young things) eh what.

The chemistry between handsome Bobby and the very cosmopolitan Frankie (who looks like Katharine Hepburn in “A Bill of Divorcement”) is part of what keeps you watching, along with the smart dialogue, and the on-point outfits that are quintessential mid-1930s England. A harmless and often witty three-episode who-dun-it, featuring Hugh Laurie as a (what else?) doctor, who I’d wager would not miss an opportunity to be in any House.