The Au Pair (Channel 5)
Sir David Suchet’s deductive power are slipping. In his Poirot days, he’d never have failed to spot a body in bovver boots, laid out in front of him.
But as a cricket-mad, burbling old buffer in The Au Pair, a four-part drama that continues tonight, he managed to remain oblivious to his own granddaughter’s unconscious shape, barely hidden beneath a sheet.
The unlucky teenager, Amber, had just been blipped over the head with a cheeseboard, at her own birthday party, by the wicked au pair.
Bleeding profusely, she left a trail of gore as the villainess dragged her into the utility room. Then she was bundled into a delivery bicycle and, still comatose, whisked away in full view of all the guests.
It wouldn’t take an Agatha Christie sleuth to spot that crime in progress. Even Inspector Clouseau might have noticed something amiss.
The au pair of the title, by the way, has a French accent even more pronounced than Peter Sellers at his silliest.
Sandrine (Ludmilla Makowski) has inveigled her way into a wealthy doctor’s family, to wreak a mysterious vengeance, but she’s handicapped by her conscience.
Every time she’s about to bump off one of her employer’s relatives, she relents. First, she sabotages the old boy’s insulin supply, then calls an ambulance.
Sandrine (Ludmilla Makowski) and George (David Suchet) in The Au Pair
Chris (Kenny Doughty) confronts Zoe (Sally Bretton) outside the muse house
Next, she drugs and half-drowns the doctor’s new wife, Zoe (Sally Bretton), before bringing her back to life. Even Amber is allowed to live.
‘Maybe ah couldn’t keel you but ah will meck yeurre life hell!’ Sandrine vows. I’m waiting for her to find a man with a ferocious dachshund and, like Clouseau, ask, ‘Does yeurre derg bite?’
Sandrine believes she is Zoe’s long-lost daughter, abandoned at birth, but she’s too demented to be a sympathetic character.
When her murderous plans are going well, she dances like a dervish to French rap music. The rest of the time, she keeps a poker face, unless she thinks no one is watching and allows herself a secret smirk.
She is, of course, a master of disguise. While she stalks Zoe, she wears a pair of sunglasses and a headscarf, making herself unrecognisable.
To slip past the party guests on her bike, she dons a green anorak and — this is the masterstroke — pulls up the hood.
On one occasion, she transforms her appearance merely by changing the colour of her lipstick.
It’s all completely bonkers, but that’s the delirious fun of this drama. Looking for logic will only spoil it.
Don’t question, for example, why Zoe’s response to burning a pizza at Amber’s party is to rush upstairs for a shower.
And don’t stop to wonder why no one except Sandrine has noticed that Amber’s best friend is eight-months pregnant.
Even the doctor (Kenny Doughty from Vera) is fooled by the way the girl folds her arms and carries a coat.
I can’t help thinking Suchet should have spotted it, though. Has he forgotten everything he learned from Poirot?
