The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Laughton made his London stage debut in Gogol's "The Government Inspector" (1926). He appeared in many West End plays in the following few years and his earliest successes on the stage were as Hercule Poirot in "Alibi" (1928); he was the first actor to portray the Belgian detective in this stage adaptation of "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", and as William Marble in "Payment Deferred", making his Lyceum Theatre (New York) debut in 1931.