Which Murder on the Orient Express recording should you buy?
Five different recordings, three of them within forty minutes of each other in length and all called the same thing. This is the most crowded listing in Christie, and the store gives you almost nothing to choose by.
Agatha Christie · 5 recordings on Audible UK
Short answer
David Suchet, if you want the novel read straight — he played Poirot for twenty-four years and it shows in the voice. Branagh and Dan Stevens are both complete and both good, so this is genuinely a matter of taste rather than quality. The Tom Conti version is an Audible Original with a full cast, which is a different experience, not a shorter one. Only the 2-hour BBC production is an adaptation.
Every recording, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Suchet Our pick | 6 hrs 49 mins | Complete novel | The television Poirot reading the book. Released 2006 and still the one most listeners mean when they recommend "the Suchet". |
| Kenneth Branagh | 6 hrs 13 mins | Complete novel | Released 2017 alongside his film. Complete text despite being the shortest of the straight readings. |
| Dan Stevens | 6 hrs 37 mins | Complete novel | Released 2014. Well regarded, and the one people who dislike actorly Poirot voices tend to land on. |
| Tom Conti, with Jane Asher, Sophie Okonedo, Paterson Joseph, Art Malik, Eddie Marsan, Rula Lenska and Ruta Gedmintas | 5 hrs 47 mins | Audible Original, full cast | A cast production rather than a reading. Nearly full length, so this is not the corner-cutting option — just a different one. |
| Full cast with John Moffatt | 2 hrs 18 mins | BBC full-cast dramatisation | A radio play. Audible files it under a "Dramatised" product slug, but the listing title looks like all the others. |
