If there’s a personality in Campbell River synonymous with the local stage it’s Brian Down.
From Fagen in Oliver and Aladdin’s mother in a Christmas pantomime to the Diary of Anne Frank, and much more, Down’s versatility in playing a role seems to know no bounds.
Now the veteran actor has taken on another iconic role by playing the legendary Hercule Poirot, English mystery author Agatha Christie’s great creation, in Ken Ludwig’s stage adaption of Murder on the Orient Express.
“Yeah, I couldn’t resist,” Down says.
Campbell River’s Rivercity Players’ production of the play opens Thursday, May 9 and runs May 9-12 and 16-18. It is also Rivercity Players’ entry into the North Island Zone Drama Festival being held in Port Alberni, May 20-25.
Murder on the Orient Express plays Tuesday, May 21 in the festival. (Full disclosure: the author of this article is the director the production, so if there are any references to the director, they have been edited to put him in the best light!)
After taking a bit of a break from acting over the last few years, Down was in a situation personally where he’s got the time to dive into a juicy role like Hercule Poirot.
“I had the time and this was such a great role,” Down says. “So, I figured I just couldn’t not do this.”
And typical of Down, he has immersed himself in the world and mind of Hercule Poirot and his creator, Agatha Christie.
“I’m conflicted over it,” Down says, “because I think he’s a very rich, rich literary character. She’s created an amazing character and she’s portrayed his characteristics so well without using the medical terminology that (would say) he’s clearly a deeply flawed person and he knows it. But, he’s good at one thing.
“And so he’s accepted that one thing and because that’s brought him some money, he’s just accepted that everybody (else) is an eccentric.”
The conflict is how other people have portrayed him, Down says.
“I think a lot of the portrayals of Poirot have gone away from her very clear (vision) of him,” he says. “And I think that’s kind of a disservice.”
Christie wrote about Poirot right up until her death and Down says her portrayal of him was consistent right to the end. Others have not followed that consistency so stringently. In Murder, Poirot is in the later stages of his career.
“To propose that he changed drastically at the end of his story, to me, is almost sacrilege because Christie took him right to the grave,” Down says.
Down says Poirot is very socially incompetent and knows it. As for his relationships and family, Down says you never know what to believe.
“One of the things about Poirot is that he may give some background but it’s not necessarily true because he would say whatever it would take to get other people to tell him the truth,” Down says. “She (Christie) created him to just sort of do that, to portray whatever it will take to get the job done.
“He’s deeply flawed. He knows that he’s uncomfortable, but because he focuses on politeness and propriety and appearances, that gives him some security in public. But then when there is an opportunity to solve something, he’s a bit of an idiot savant. He can see things that other people can’t see.”
If you’ve heard Down speak, you know his voice is in the deep dulcet tones of eastern Canada. He was born and raised in an Anglophone part of the Sherbrooke region of Quebec, the youngest of four kids who was “just always a ham and always got attention by saying things that I thought were funny.”
Some school Christmas pageants got him onstage for the first time, once as the Little Drummer Boy who, instead of sitting back with the chorus, had to be up front beating the drum and “that’s kind of where I wanted to stay.”
In highschool he got hooked on acting in a serious way and recognizing the privilege of living near Stratford, Ontario, often availed himself of the Stratford festival productions the town is famous for. Moving to B.C., he got his fix of Shakespeare through the Bard on the Beach productions in Vancouver.
A Campbell Riverite for 35 years now, he’s also well known for being the voice of the Campbell River Storm on the PA at Strathcona Gardens, a gig that he has now moved on from.
Down is grateful for Campbell River’s local community theatre companies that he’s performed with, Rivercity Players and Shoreline Musical Theatre Society.
“We don’t have a lot of amateur theatre here compared to Courtney but the people that are there are dedicated and do a good job and the audience is always appreciated. So I’m just so glad there’s so many people, especially people behind the scenes who never get recognized. It’s just wonderful being part of a community where there’s so many people dedicated to improving and keeping it going.”
Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, Adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig, opens Thursday, May 9 at the Rivercity Stage, 1080 Hemlock St. Tickets are $25 and are available at rivercitytickets.ca.