EVERY EPISODE of the period drama series Poirot is beautifully crafted. Every element, every piece of furniture, every prop, every location, are perfectly set in the 1930s world that Hercule Poirot inhabited.

But hang on a minute. Here’s this fussy, old-fashioned, middle-aged detective, occupying an environment that was, in the 1930s, bang up-to-date. Are we really to believe that such a man would rush out and buy the latest art deco lamps, tea service, book shelves and armchairs? Wouldn’t such a character be happier in a much older house, surrounded by the Victorian furniture with which he grew up?

That’s the thing about period drama. Everything you see is from precisely the right period. But in real life, we inhabit a world full of comfortable relics of the past. Real life doesn’t work like period drama.