Agatha Christie's Marple - Endless Night - ITV review

Endless Night, screened this evening on ITV, made an appealing Christie for Christmas. Agatha Christie's Marple is not an entirely consistent series, but here, the Queen of Crime's last really good novel was capably adapted by Kevin Elyot, who is a seasoned writer of Christie stories for stage and screen. Introducing Jane Marple into a story in which she did not originally appear was risky, for sure. Yet on the whole Elyot did a highly professional job - even though this did entail Julia McKenzie popping up so often and so unexpectedly that she became a spookier presence than the gypsy whose curse sets the story going.

The brilliance of the original novel, lay in the fact that Christie, writing in the Sixties, repeated one of her most famous tricks, despite its being supposedly unrepeatably. I borrowed the book from the local library shortly after it first came out, and was much impressed. As a student, I also enjoyed the film version starring Hywel Bennett as Michael Rogers, the poor lad who marries a lovely heiress. The film's cast was superb - it also included the likes of Hayley Mills, Britt Ekland, George Sanders and Peter Bowles. I'd rate it as the most under-rated movie ever made of a Christie novel.

Back to tonight's show, which also had an impressive cast. Tom Hughes played Michael, while his architect pal was played by Aneurin Barnard (the young hero of Moonfleet - he's had as impressive a festive season as Jenna Coleman.) Tamzin Outhwaite was almost unrecognisable as Michael's miserable mum, while there were cameo roles for Wendy Craig and Hugh Dennis.

The unusual structure of the plot means that Endless Night is far from orthodox Christie fare. This has caused some commentators to under-estimate it. In fact, it's a good story, and although this version did not strike me as being quite as compelling as the film (though in saying that, I have to admit I've not seen the film for a very long time) nevertheless it made excellent Sunday evening entertainment.

Agatha Christie's Marple: Greenshaw's Folly - ITV review

Agatha Christie's Marple continued tonight with Greenshaw's Folly. This title may be unfamiliar to many readers. In fact, "Greenshaw's Folly" is a short story, and the screenplay, by Tim Whitnall, welded plot elements from that story with some from another called "The Thumb Mark of St Peter". This might seem like a recipe for a rather disjointed show, but it began well, I thought, before becoming bogged down in excessive convolutions.

Julia Mackenzie held the story together. She may not be Joan Hickson, but she is more akin to my idea of Miss Marple than, say, Margaret Rutherford or Geraldine McEwan. She has identified the strength in Jane Marple's character, a combination of inquisitiveness and a determination not to be rebuffed, coupled with a firm moral sense and a genuine compassion. I tend to think that Christie would have approved her portrayal of the sage of St Mary Mead.

Miss Marple finds a position for a young woman, played by Kimberley Nixon, who seeks her help, but life at her new home, Greenshaw's Folly, proves far from straightforward, and before long the butler is found dead. Miss Marple crosses swords with a detective played by the always enjoyable John Gordon Snclair, and the usual excellent cast included such notables as Fiona Shaw, Julia Sawalha, Joanna David and Judy Parfitt.

I found watching the show a relaxing way to build up to Publication Day (in the UK, at any rate) of The Frozen Shroud.  This is not an event likely to stop traffic anywhere, but it's a book that I'm very glad to have written. Tomorrow I'll talk about that eternally tense subject for a writer - the experience of waiting for reviews of one's latest effort. Even Agatha Christie, I suspect, must have been a bit nervous about how people would react to her latest book, and I'm no different.

Agatha Christie's Marple: A Caribbean Mystery - ITV review

Agatha Christie's Marple returned this evening with A Caribbean Mystery, starring Julia Mackenzie as the amiable but steely sleuth from St Mary Mead, this time holidaying, courtesy of her generous nephew, on the small island of St Honore. Although the book, published in the Sixties, was one of Christie's later efforts, it was one of the first detective novels I ever read, and I've always had a soft spot for the story. And the televising of this particular episode today meant that my Sunday got off to a very unusual start.

For the first time in a very, very long while, I was up at 5 on a Sunday morning, since I'd been asked to appear on BBC TV's Breakfast show to talk about the enduring appeal of Miss Marple. After a slight panic when the taxi to collect me turned up at the wrong house, I duly arrived at the BBC's glitzy Media City premises in Salford in time to appear for the first of two slots at 6.40 a.m.

I've done live TV before, and I've also appeared on national TV before, but this was my first live interview on national as opposed to regional or special interest TV. I was warned in advance that guests on the show go to be "made-up" before appearing, and as I've never done any acting, this was a new experience for me. Quite a challenge for the make-up person. Anyway, before long I was being introduced to the very pleasant presenters, Roger Johnson and Nega Munchetty. My slot was a combination of a short film about the enduring appeal of Miss Marple coupled with an interview. Once it was done, there was a chance to chill out in the hospitality area before a second appearance (with different questions) two hours later. Slightly nerve-racking, but overall, a fun experience, made easier by kind messages from friends who had been startled to switch on their telly and find me chatting about Agatha Christie.

Back to A Caribbean Mystery. It certainly justified the enthusiasm I expressed this morning. The plot depends on elements that bear some resemblances to earlier Christie novels (to say more would be a spoiler), but the untypical and very photogenic setting worked very well for Sunday evening light entertainment. One of the points I often make about Christie's appeal is her universality, and that is true, I think, of this story. The show may have been set in the Caribbean, but the plot was straight out of the British Golden Age. Mind you, Miss Marple is allowed to reflect, rather amusingly, about sex. And this wasn't something tacked on gratuitously by the scriptwriter. The passage in question is taken straight from chapter one of the novel.

The cast, as ever, was full of stellar names. So we had, for instance, Robert Webb as Tim Kendal, MyAnna Buring as Lucky Dyson, and the ever-reliable.Oliver Ford-Davies as Major Palgrave. Anthony Sher was terrific as Mr Rafiel, and his interplay with Julia Mackenzie highly entertaining. The screenplay was by Charlie Higson, and offered a reminder of what a capable writer he is. He also gave himself a role which afforded the chance for a couple of James Bond jokes. Self-indulgent, possibly, but appealingly sot. An enjoyable episode, made especially memorable for me by that trip to Media City.

Agatha Christie's Marple:The Pale Horse - review

Agatha Christie's Marple - why do they call it that? It's not as if there's any need to avoid confusion,because Dorothy L. Sayers or someone else also wrote about a character with that name. What's more, I had one or two reservations about the casting of Julia Mackenzie as the great spinster sleuth, and I decided not to watch the adaptation of The Pale Horse, when it was first shown two years ago, because it introduced Jane Marple into a very good story in which she never appeared. It all seemed like a recipe for disaster.

But one or two Christie fans told me that this was one of the best adaptations of her work in recent years, so I decided to give in, and have a look at it. And to be honest, I'm glad I did, because on the whole, it was a pretty good piece of entertainment, despite the radical changes made to the original. The screenplay was written by Russell Lewis, a very experienced writer. I've never met him, but long ago he was mooted as someone to adapt the Harry Devlin books for TV. Sadly, that never happened.

The opening of the story is very different from that of the book. A vicar - played by Nicholas Parsons - is beaten to death after visiting a dying woman. But he is an old pal of Miss Marple, and has already sent her a mysterious letter containing a list of names and a reference to the Book of Revelation. Her enquiries quickly lead her to a spooky hotel deep in rural England called The Pale Horse.

The cast was excellent, including such stars as Neil Pearson, Pauline Collins and Nigel Planer. With a couple of exceptions, over-acting (which really kills the televised Christies) was avoided, thank goodness, and I thought Julia Mackenzie did well enough in the part to overcome my doubts. All in all, very watchable, if very different from the original, which was definitely one of the best Christies written after the 1950s, and a book that's certainly worth reading if you are unfamiliar with it.

The Blue Geranium

The Blue Geranium started life as a short story, and I was rather surprised to find that it had been turned into a two-hour drama for Agatha Christie's Marple. A number of Christie's short stories which have been turned into sixty minute episodes have seemed rather padded-out. So I did not watch the show first time around, but finally I have weakened and given it a try.

Unexpectedly, I thought it was pretty good. Needless to say, the scriptwriter, Stewart Harcourt, had to invent a great deal of plot material, but I felt he managed to accomplish the rather difficult task of blending the old and new. And I was amused to see in the cast list that the three small children who discovered a body near a river were young Harcourts – he and they must have enjoyed that! As ever, the cast was strong, and included Caroline Catz, whom I rather liked in that otherwise patchy series of a few years back, Murder in Suburbia.

I have always thought that Agatha Christie was a far better novelist than a short story writer, even though admittedly she did write quite a number of really good short stories. "The Blue Geranium" in its original form was enjoyable, and it is to be found in the first and strongest collection of Miss Marple short stories, The thirteen problems.

Watching this episode made me think that there is a particular knack to adapting a short story for television. It is sometimes done well (for instance, with some of the Sherlock Holmes adaptations that we have seen over the years) but often the results are disappointing. The reality is that, usually, the source material needs to be changed and expanded, perhaps radically. In recent times, some of the "improvements" on Christie plots have been deeply unappealing. But not, I felt, in the case of The Blue Geranium.

Agatha Christie's Marple: The Secret of Chimneys - review

Agatha Christie’s Marple this evening gave us The Secret of Chimneys, from a book which dates back to 1925. Jane Marple does not appear in the book, and frankly the story – a cheerfully ludicrous thriller – would be long forgotten if Christie were not the author. I felt compelled to watch, though, to see what the scriptwriter, Paul Rutman – a capable and experienced TV detective drama writer - would make of a very tough challenge.

His approach was to take a few small plot elements and a number of characters (or, at least, their names) from the original but to create an entirely new story, with the scene being set in 1932 before moving into the 1950s, with Miss Marple, in the shape of Julia Mackenzie, improbably invited to Chimneys along with an exotic foreign aristocrat and a woman from ‘National Heritage’.

The cast was good, including the reliable Edward Fox, the beautiful Charlotte Salt and the talented Dervla Kirwan. But the story-line was risible and Christie probably turned in her grave at the identity and motive of the culprit. I was certainly amazed, but not in a good way.

I was left wondering what was the object of the exercise. I could see the point of the new TV version of Murder on the Orient Express, even though I’ve read some comments by purists who disapprove of the changes made to the original, because the focus on justice was – to me – genuinely interesting. But with The Secret of Chimneys, a silly but mildly amusing book from the 1920s just became a silly TV show of 2010. Disappointing, to say the least.

Towards Zero

I was never wild about the version of Agatha Christie’s Marple starring Geraldine McEwan as the great detective, and so it took me a long time to get round to watching Towards Zero. The book is a Christie with a clever plot that I enjoyed a good deal when I first read it at a tender age. Jane Marple doesn’t even appear in it, so I rather feared the worst from Kevin Elyot’s adaptation. My expectations were low, but I resolved not to make too many comparisons with the original book, and in fact it proved to be an eminently watchable programme; Miss Marple fitted into it pretty well.

The key to the plot is the idea that the story of a murder occurs long before the commission of the crime, but the key question is: whose murder is being contemplated? There are plenty of red herrings, especially those arising from a story told by the old lawyer Mr Treves (here, he was a barrister rather than a solicitor) about a youthful criminal of long ago whom he had recognised again. Needless to say, Mr Treves is soon found dead.

The cast of this version was filled with famous names. Even Greg Rusedski appeared, as a Wimbledon opponent of tennis-playing Nevile Strange (played by Greg Wise.) Saffron Burrows was a glamorous former Mrs Strange, and Eileen Atkins played the invalid aunt whose lovely house accommodates the party of suspect. The cast also included Dr Who (Tom Baker, doing a roguish version of Mr Treves) and Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies, as the superintendent bemused by Jane Marple’s insights)

Elyot’s screenplay was pretty good, given the decision to introduce Jane Marple, which necessitated various changes of structure. The locations, on the Devon coast, were sumptuous and added to the pleasure of classic comfort viewing. Christie purists wince at some of the television versions of the books (the train wreck that was The Sittaford Mystery remains my pet hate) but events here moved Towards Zero in undemanding and rather agreeable fashion.