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.

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.