Now retired and living in self-imposed exile in the world's most glamorous city, Poirot reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of shadows and secrets.

Kenneth Branagh writes and directs a comic tale about an out-of-work actor's desperate attempt to salvage his career and his life by staging a production of Hamlet. Lacking time and money to do the play justice, he hires a motley cast of drunks, incompetents, oddballs and an aging female impersonator to play Queen Gertrude. Now, through backstage dramas, inevitable disasters and the occasional triumph, this cast of would-be losers strives to create...