Viewers have criticised the new BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1944 novel Towards Zero.

The BBC One drama aired its first episode on Sunday night but many viewers confessed they found a key point of the adaptation ‘distracting’, complaining that the cast were wearing ‘too much makeup’ and even declaring that ‘that there was no lip fillers back then.’

The murder mystery is based on a lesser known book from the crime writer, and follows a recently divorced British tennis player holidaying at his aristocratic aunt’s house in Devon in the 1930s. 

The three-part adaptation by Rachel Bennette has also been slammed as ‘woke’ by some viewers, who have hit out the colour-blind casting, with some comparing the drama to Netflix period drama Bridgerton, renowned for its diverse cast.

‘BBC has been touting ‘Towards Zero’ for weeks, so at the appointed hour, OH&I turn on & find it’s been rescheduled… mercifully, we saw it all. It’s been Bridgertoned, fostering the charming fiction that 1930s England was a paradise of racial tolerance & inclusivity. It wasn’t,’ wrote one fan on X, previously known as Twitter.

‘Thought I’d give the new BBC drama a sH๏τ this evening. Towards Zero. Set in the 20s/30s? An awful lot of wokery on display from the start,’ another agreed. 

Viewers have criticised the new BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1944 novel Towards Zero, after BBC One aired its first episode on Sunday night 

Many viewers confessed they found a key point of the adaptation ‘distracting’, complaining that the cast were wearing ‘too much makeup’. Pictured Mimi Keene as Kay Elliot

‘Watching Towards Zero. I didn’t think it was possible to screw up an Agatha Christie adaptation, but 20 minutes in, and they seem to be making a real hash of it. What a waste of a cast, decent settings, and a classic story.’

‘@BBCOne we’ve just binged watched Towards Zero. What a disappointment. Dismal cast, wooden acting and the absolute worst adaptation we’ve ever seen of an Agatha Christie novel. Awful, awful,awful. A waste of 3 hours and the licence fee tbh.’

‘I see the BBC is stretching credulity yet again with the casting in its latest Agatha Christie dramatisation. Not to mention inexplicably shooting it in vestigial gloom.’

Other though simply complained about the lack of action with one viewer musing: ‘I’m not bothered about period make up and I’m not bothered by black actors playing characters (I’m sure this is what people mean by ‘woke’ here), but I need a bit more to happen. #TowardsZero,’ whilst another complained it was ‘Boringly slow’.

One of the drama’s stars Clarke Peters, who has also appeared on The Wire, has slammed colour-blind casting in factual dramas, arguing it would be ‘absurd’ if Dominic West portrayed Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

He also condemned HarperCollins decision to remove offensive language from Agatha Christie’s novels.

The 72-year-old, who plays wealthy black solicitor Mr Treves in Towards Zero, said that colour blind casting is only acceptable for fiction.

One even complained on Twitter that ‘that there was no lip fillers back then’ (pictured – Audrey Strange)

Read More BBC1’s Towards Zero review: A superlative adaptation of Christie’s overlooked masterpiece

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the Guys and Dolls star said: ‘I think you have to really be particular about how you do that [colour blind casting].

‘I wouldn’t want to see Dominic West play Idi Amin for example, and it would be absurd for that to happen.’

Ugandan dictator Amin, notorious for his brutality, was responsible for an estimated 500,000 deaths during his rule from 1971 to 1979.

Clarke also condemned the decision by HarperCollins, the publisher of Agatha Christie novels, to remove potentially offensive language from her books, including insults and references to ethnicity.

He said: ‘I don’t think that you want to erase that, because when you begin erasing history, you wind up where most people in the diaspora from Africa are now; not knowing their history.’

The three-part adaptation by Rachel Bennette has also been slammed as ‘ woke ‘ by some viewers, who have hit out the colour-blind casting

One of the drama’s stars Clarke Peters, who has also appeared on The Wire, has slammed colour-blind casting in factual dramas

Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries written between 1920 and 1976 had pᴀssages reworked or removed in new editions published to strip them of language and descriptions that modern audiences find offensive, especially those involving the characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside the UK.

Discussing his role as a black lawyer in Towards Zero, the writer and father-of-five said: ‘I would not exist in Agatha Christie’s world in that role.

‘That doesn’t mean that there were not black barristers or black lawyers, there were, but she was not a party to those people, and therefore would find it difficult to fit a character like myself into her narrative.’