Agatha Christie | Thinking about books

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2009)

April 22, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (2009) is another of these rewrites — a task which, this time fell to Patrick Barlow. So how did he do? Well, from his point of view, he was starting from near the bottom of the barrel. No matter how you view the Christie canon, this is not one of her best works. Rather it’s one of these romance-tinged mysteries which has a couple of bright young things investigating skullduggery and coming out of the experience deeply in love. I think the kindest thing anyone can say of this early work is that it’s best left in relative obscurity. However, by changing things around to introduce Miss Marple, it’s possible to rescue the leaking plot, give it some cohesion, and raise the general standard of the mystery to solve. Watching the result proves the old adage that not everything that’s possible may actually be achieved.

Sean Biggerstaff

Let’s start with the set-up. Somewhat extraordinarily, the young man with time on his hands is first seen walking along the cliff top in full childhood mode. He’s playing cowboys and indians (although, given the relocation in time to the 1950s, I suppose he could be pretending to be a heroic Tommy). Either way, he’s using his fingers as guns and, at one time, is himself shot and falls down clutching his stomach. Unkindly, I was forming the impression this was a character in need of psychiatric assistance when he metamorphosed into Bobby Attfield (Sean Biggerstaff) because, attracted by faint cries not emanating from the circling gulls, he looks over the cliff edge and sees the body of a man on a ledge. Climbing down, he receives the fatal question forming the title to the book.

At this point, I need to make a minor detour through my own recollections of the time. Yes, by modern standards, it was remarkably amateurish. But if there was an unnatural death, an inquest would be held and our cowboy Tommy would be called. If he did not turn up to give evidence, questions would be asked. Put this the other way round. He was expecting to be called and, when the letter arrived, he set off, meeting Frankie Derwent (Georgia Moffett) on the train. She comes with him and they find the nominated building closed. So they just shrug their shoulder and go home? That’s not credible. They would hammer on the door of the building or go round to the nearest police station to find where the inquest is being held. They are socially responsible and intelligent people. If a mistake has been made, they would want to put it right. This fundamental plotting error is the first of an endless series that ends up in one of the worst examples of potboiling melodrama it has been my misfortune to see for years.

Georgia Moffett

I will spare you the catalogue of catastrophe. Suffice it to say that very little of what we see on screen makes any sense or allows us to see an investigation into the sequence of events that occurred six months earlier. Let me put it to you fairly and squarely. If Miss Marple is going to be able to reconstruct what happened in a house she’s never visited involving people she’s never met, how can she do it unless she physically goes there and talks with those people? The answer provided by this adaptation is that she can have perfect twenty-twenty hindsight without have any beforesight, if you catch my meaning. Apart from the killer(s), this Miss Marple does not meet with anyone who could possibly have told her what happened. We’re supposed to accept she could infer events from seeing the will. None of this rubbish about motive and opportunity. No grilling of witnesses. This is the ultimate rabbit from a hat without the intervention of a magician.

So apart from changing virtually everything without improving the outcome, can anything good be said about the production? I loved the old house they used as a setting for the larger part of the action. If you’re going to have people eavesdropping and lurking in shadows, you need the right place to do it and this house was absolutely perfect. Despite being given very silly things to do, the cast was unusually restrained and quietly impressive (except during the climactic denouement where all intelligence was abandoned. If you’re going to have a group of people pretend that any one or more of them could be murderers, they all have to look deeply suspicious and yet normal in a surreal kind of way. Without exception, this was done brilliantly. It didn’t matter which of them was guilty of the murder(s), they were all enjoyable to watch. As to Julia McKenzie, this was the first time I actually felt she was a good version of Miss Marple. She hid behind her knitting and was quietly sitting unobserved in odd corners as “things” went on around her. She was also more effectively proactive in protecting the two lovers in their naive efforts to solve the crime. As a final thought about the ending (ignoring the two love birds skipping off into the sunset, of course), it’s rare to have a whodunnit end with two of the “innocent” members of the cast under arrest for the murder of the murderer(s). Without wishing to spoil all the “excitement” you might derive from watching it, we have a quite deliberate execution scene. Although a good argument might have been made for self-defence, what actually happens is a deliberate act going far beyond what’s actually needed to protect the person under attack. I fear a mandatory life sentence would be required for these last minute killers. So Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? has a dire plot but a not unenjoyable piece of acting in spectacularly appropriate locations. This series is proving a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: Books Tags: Agatha Christie, Georgia Moffett, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, murder, mystery, Sean Biggerstaff

Agatha Christie’s Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (2009)

April 16, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

As Agatha Christie Marple: They Do It with Mirrors (2009) gets underway with this latest slice of Golden Age detective fiction, we’re suddenly transfixed by the appearance of a number of “old stalwarts”. Well, perhaps “transfixed” is not quite doing justice to the moment. I confess to being stunned and amazed Joan Collins is still going strong. Born in 1933, she contrives to look younger than Julia McKenzie and Penelope Wilton. For the record, both the book and this script require all three to be approximately the same age, having attended the same school. I’m not sure how she’s managing to preserve her youthfulness but, if Joan Collins could put it in a bottle, she would make millions more than her acting career has so far delivered. This only leaves the problem of her screen presence which is what you might might call idiosyncratic. I suspect she’s always been less an actor and more a personality. Even at the height of her popularity in Dynasty, there’s a magnificently artificial quality about her. In this performance, she’s definitely not in the business of acting “with” Julia McKenzie. They both just happen to be on the screen at the same time. There’s also something distinctly weird about the accent adopted by Penelope Wilton. Not only is it uncertain what she’s supposed to be aiming at, the goalposts keep moving as her voice trembles into a different variation for every scene.

So where are we with this adaptation? In terms of fidelity to the book, we’re fairly accurate with two variations. In the novel, a part of the mansion has been turned over to house delinquent boys, whereas in this adaptation, we see a compound in the grounds for the rehabilitation of adult offenders. The second is a redesign of the group scene when Lewis Serrocold (Brian Cox) and Edgar Lawson (Tom Payne) have their argument — the body of Christian Gulbrandsen being found almost immediately afterwards. On balance, I think this an improvement over the book. What actually works well on the page might not look quite so good on the small screen. Whereas this rather cleverly preserves the spirit of the original while making it visually arresting and spreading the degree of uncertainty about who might have committed the murder. The arrival of Johnny Restarick (Ian Ogilvy) is also pleasing, allowing us to see the outside of the mansion from his perspective in flashback as he approached through the early evening mist.

Julia McKenzie and Joan Collins as “old friends”

For once, keeping the ending the same also works well given this motive for the murders. There’s considerable pathos in seeing this acted out. However the other elements of the ending are definitely not even vaguely realistic. The failed marriage between Gina Elsworth (Emma Griffiths Malin) and Wally Hudd (Elliot Cowan) has been nicely shown. She’s shamelessly flirting with all and sundry while he stares morosely into his morning porridge. Then, miraculously she’s reformed and goes off to produce multiple babies to populate a house on the prairies. It’s wholly incredible. I’m also not sure about the character of Mildred (Sarah Smart). Even allowing for the fact her mother is shown as a complete failure in the parenting stakes, she’s grown up into an embittered religious fanatic, considered somewhat loopy by everyone. To have her reconcile with her mother and essentially become “normal” is stretching credibility. Finally, we come to the core “romance” between the Serrocolds. Given this version of the story, their relationship is supposed to be deeply loving where he would do almost anything for her. Frankly, I think these parts fundamentally miscast or the director is seriously at fault. Penelope Wilton comes across as almost completely self-absorbed with little or no empathy as a parent or wife. After seeing him play an endless sequence of villains, it’s fun to see Brian Cox try to appear somewhat more normal. But this performance fails to show any affection. Although couples who have been married for a few years can lack the more obvious signs of passion, this couple just seems to be sharing occupation of the house and an interest in rehabilitating criminals. They’re more like colleagues than lovers.

The result of all this musing is another failure. I’m still not convinced by Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple. She doesn’t feel proactive enough. When Joan Hickson was on the case, you felt a judge and jury had walked on to the screen to weigh the wickedness around her. For all her faults, Geraldine McEwan had a certain self-mockery about her performance, being fairly dotty and not averse to trying to matchmake when there was a young couple to push in the right direction. In this story, Miss Marple is supposed to walk into the household and take command to ensure nothing happens to her lifelong friend. Sadly, there’s absolutely no sign of that at all. So with all the weak performances and a fairly indifferent plot, Agatha Christie’s Marple: They Do It with Mirrors is showing every sign of continuing the decline of the series into oblivion.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Brian Cox, detective fiction, Golden Age, Joan Collins, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, murder, mystery, Penelope Wilton

Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy (2009)

April 14, 2013 David Marshall 2 comments

television

Well the first in this new series of Golden Age detective fiction gave us our first view of Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple but she was kept rather in the background. This adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy (2009) keeps the character front and centre, offering us a better chance to evaluate the performance. The experience here is somewhat like watching Doctor Who, a character played by many actors over the years. This was always faintly disconcerting because, as each regeneration came, we got major shifts in age and attitude. Miss Marple, on the other hand, must always be reasonably old although even this was slightly bent out of shape by Angela Lansbury in The Mirror Crack’d (1980). The perennial problem of how to portray her lies in understanding her methodology. Once people huddle together into villages, they get sucked into the communal life. One of the most consistent characters is the gossip. This person is usually female and she prides herself on being able to ferret out who’s doing what to whom and why just by sitting in small groups and listening. In many communities where privacy is more highly valued, village gossips are rather disliked and, in some cases, feared.

Hence, when it comes to presenting a gossip on the screen as the heroine of a long-running series, the temptation is always to make her more likeable. Yet to defang her is to reduce her capacity for investigation. As drawn by Agatha Christie, this is a woman of intelligence who has observed life. She’s usually full of anecdotes about what the butcher did with his thumb when weighing the meat, and how many others whom she has known engaged in different types of dishonesty. She can be a little fierce sometimes. And herein lies the problem with Julia McKenzie. I think she’s altogether to pallid. Yes, you have the sense she’s intelligent, but there’s a lack of steel in her. This is a more passive Miss Marple, lacking any kind of quirkiness or eccentricity. She’s not even bumbling. The very least she could do is drop her ball of wool while knitting except we’re yet to see her knit. How is she supposed to eavesdrop on people in conversations if she can’t disappear into the background by appearing to concentrate on knit one, pearl one? If she’s supposed to be able to wangle information out of people, she should be more quickly able to blend into a conversation. In the first two episodes, there are too many silences and moments of slight awkwardness as she meets and talks with new people. I’m not convinced this is a good version of Miss Marple. I still prefer Joan Hickson with Margaret Rutherford a close second.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Julia McKenzie making short work of the mystery

As originally written, this is not a Miss Marple mystery. It features a free-standing Luke Fitzwilliam (Benedict Cumberbatch) who’s returned from distant parts of the Empire where he was a police officer. After a casual meeting with a woman on the train, he’s the one who goes to the archetypal village to unmask the killer and fall in love. It’s one of these slightly wishy-washy stories in which mystery and romance go hand-in-hand through a serial killer case in a class-ridden village where there’s a faintly supernatural element in play — the local Lord is into sacrificing hens in pagan rituals. What we are presented with here is not simply a reworking of the story to introduce Miss Marple, but a wholesale revision of the story. This not only removes some characters and introduces new ones, but it also completely changes the motive for the murders — it even changes some of murder methods, e.g. from a hit-and-run car accident to pushing the victim down a long escalator on the London Underground.

I need to be clear on the basis for this review. I’m simply noting that this is nothing like the Christie original but judging the episode as presented on the screen. The first problem is in the number of men on display. If this is supposed to be just after the Second World War, most villages were predominantly female. Local land owners, being mostly Conservative in outlook and patriotic by disposition, had gone off the war. Many had failed to return. There were also not enough children in view. Babies were booming at this time as those men who had either avoided the call to duty or had managed to avoid death set out to repopulate the land. This version has Miss Marple, Luke Fitzwilliam and the local PC Terence Reed (Russell Tovey) combine to investigate. The presence of the PC gives a veneer of official approval for the investigation but, as written, there’s no consistency in the Constable who veers violently between being almost completely dim to being able to attribute a quote to Edmund Burke. As to the rest of the cast, it was pleasing in a good way to see Sylvia Syms and Tim Brooke-Taylor — I always fear old “friends” have died. Shirley Henderson does well as a younger version of Honoria Waynflete. Everyone else lurks in the background or keels over dead with the customary style. I was very surprised at the darkness of the motive for all the murders. It’s certainly not something that Agatha Christie would ever have introduced. I feel those adapting an old book for a modern audience have an obligation to keep motives consistent with the morality of the times shown. Although the biblical disposition of the child was not unreasonable, I’m not convinced the concealment of this set of circumstances would have led to so many deaths. In the original, the murderer was less than sane. The murderer in this version seems to have killed so many out of an excess of caution — something I find less than credible. So, overall, I find Agatha Christie’s Marple: Murder is Easy disappointing.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Benedict Cumberbatch, detective fiction, Golden Age, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Miss Marple, murder, Murder is Easy, mystery

Agatha Christie’s Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye (2008)

April 9, 2013 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Perhaps I’m just getting old and so more often find myself out of sympathy with television representations of the times from my youth. Although I failed to arrange being born into a rich family with a large country estate, we were on the periphery of the county set and I observed many people of the type we see on display in these period adaptations. The book on which Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye (2008) is based was written and set in the 1950s and, as the title suggests, was another of these plots recycling nursery rhymes. At this point I need to distinguish between the source material and the most recent adaptation. I read this when it first came out in paperback around 1958 and, like many books by Agatha Christie, the actual characters are fairly irrelevant. They are the standard stereotypes who do what’s necessary to advance the plot. The basis of enjoyment lies in the rather nice construction of the puzzle. As is always the case when the reader is given a clue in the title, the question is whether the author is playing fair or the clue is actually a bluff. If it’s a bluff, whose bluff is it. The author could be setting out to mislead us from the moment we open the book or the murderer could be using the rhyme for a particular purpose. When I sat down to watch this, I confess I could not remember it. Many of the Agatha Christies have blurred together into a kind of generic lump of Golden Age Detective Fiction. Of all the authors who came to prominence in the 1920s and 30s, she proved to be the best at the mystery three-card-trick. You take a limited number of people, shuffle them around and then devise a set of circumstances in which a different person is the murderer for each book. It can even be everyone or the detective or, in one case, the first-person narrator. Everyone gets to play the part on the whim of the Queen of Crime. The result is there’s little memorable about the individual stories. What we tend to remember are the broad brushstrokes of the detectives and their immediate entourage, and occasional solutions which were outstandingly spectacular.

Ralf Little, Julia McKenzie and Matthew Macfadyen looking to investigate

So here we are with another actress drafted in to play Miss Marple (I suppose Geraldine McEwan was just a little too long in the tooth as she approached her 80th birthday). This time, we’re off with Julia McKenzie. For the record, Joan Hickson featured in an adaptation of this novel that was shown in 1985. So those of you with memories like an elephant or a comprehensive set of DVDs can compare interpretations. This strikes me a somewhat bland but, in part, that’s because she shares the detecting spotlight with Inspector Neele (Matthew Macfadyen) and his faintly comic sidekick Sergeant Pickford (Ralf Little). Perhaps if she was allowed the starring role, we might see her performance in a better light.

As to the plot, we start off with the murder of Rex Fortescue (Kenneth Cranham). Have you noticed how often Agatha Christie gets the ball rolling by killing a bullying patriarch? It’s probably terribly Freudian that these guys always deserve to die. They are usually slightly on the upper side of middle class, reasonably wealthy but ultimately convinced the rest of the world contains an inferior species. In this case, he’s somewhat loopy which is not a desirable mental state for a man running an investment bank. He’s been moving out of all the good, safe bonds into new derivatives and other casino style financial products. This has been driving his son Percival (Ben Miles) nuts. The family were watching their wealth go down the toilet but would the old boy listen? So they were rescued when someone poisoned the idiot and left the rye in his pocket. Naturally Miss Marple is not a little upset when her ex-maid is also slaughtered while hanging out the clothes in the garden. That just leaves the queen to die in the parlour and the rhyme is complete.

Rupert Grave as the black sheep of the family

The problem with this adaptation is that the characters are either the servants (the drunk butler and prickly cook) who are easy to spot, or generic wealthy middle class types, often with rather less middle class accents to show their feet of clay. Yes, wealthy people did marry beneath themselves in those days. A fact made embarrassingly obvious in this production by their low class accents and potentially boorish behaviour. And that’s what really depresses me about this adaptation. The class-based drama focuses on the pursuit of money and status. This unhappy shower may have acquired the money but they certainly have not acquired any manners to go with them. This is the noveau riche trying to live the life of the old money, upper class. Percival is the miser son, counting every penny. Lance Fortescue (Rupert Graves) flies in from Paris after his father’s death so he stands out a little as having a little more style. But then the black sheep of the family do tend to be charismatic.

Even though it relies on one person being extraordinarily stupid, I suppose the plot is one of the better ones with the way in which the evidence emerges staying true to the book. I’m going to reserve judgement on Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple. We just don’t see enough of her in this episode. So A Pocket Full of Rye is reasonably entertaining for a show of this type if you can stand being cooped up with this group of rather unpleasant figures for two hours.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: A Pocket Full of Rye, Agatha Christie, Ben Miles, detective fiction, Golden Age, Julia McKenzie, Marple, Matthew Macfadyen, Miss Marple, murder, mystery, Ralf Little, Rupert Graves

Herring on the Nile by L C Tyler

June 26, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

book

As a reviewer, I try to read without any prejudices so one of the more intriguing aspects of the task comes after I finish a book and pick up the press pack sent with it. I say “pack” in the more general sense of the word because, in most cases, it’s only a single sheet of paper. But the norm is for there to be a brief synopsis and then talking points, focusing the reviewer’s attention on the features the marketers wish me to highlight. These are usually hyperbolic. For example, you may read that, “Jack Sunderland’s latest blockbuster will leave readers gasping for breath as the excitement rolls over them like a juggernaut”, or “Mary Dunstable’s work has a luminous and transcendent quality that makes her a major British voice”. Not that blurbs actually have to mean anything, of course. All they are supposed to do is hit a minimum number of key words that will produce a high google ranking if they appear in a website review.

So you can imagine, after finishing Herring on the Nile by L C Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press, 2012), I was more than a little disconcerted to read the press pack headline, “Killingly funny!” I’ve made no secret of the fact my sense of humour quotient is usually zero. All the more interesting, therefore, to find the magic page listing previous books by this author and their nominations for “funniest book of the year” awards. It seems our author has a reputation for producing books leaving his readers gasping desperately for breath after laughing uncontrollably for several hours. For the record, this book was shortlisted for the GOLDSBORO LAST LAUGH AWARD 2011 so, yet again, I find myself cut off from mainstream reaction to a written source, although I draw minimal comfort from the fact it did not win (I capitalised the award title so you would be more impressed). Perhaps significantly, I was like the dog reading in the night and managed nothing approximating even hollow laughter.

I do confess to being nicely appreciative of the attacks on Dan Brown. I’m always fascinated to see what the libel laws currently allow us critics to say about another’s work and avoid civil action for damages. On this occasion, it continues to be acceptable to suggest this New York Times Bestseller Listed author can’t write for toffee. And the running “joke” based on our poor hero’s need to complete interview forms for various local newspapers did provide some interesting insights into his state of mind and immediate predicament. But looking back over the text, I’m stunned to discover this is supposed to be a comic novel.

L C Tyler (Len to his friends) doing his Tommy Cooper impression

So if Herring on the Nile is not going to leave you rolling in the aisles demanding more, is it worth reading? The answer is that, as a detective novel, it’s a rather clever puzzle and, although I think it’s fairly obvious whodunnit (although not why), I read through to the end in a single sitting with considerable curiosity to see how it all turned out. Our hero is Ethelred Tressider. He’s a third-rate author who, when the creditors become too importunate to ignore, churns out another crime novel (he has two pseudonyms) or a romance (using a third female pseudonym to blend into the landscape). The literary agent who has the thankless task of selling these books and their translation rights is Elsie Thirkettle. For reasons I will not bore you with, our joined-at-the-financial-hip couple (that’s not a romantic joining, you understand) end up on a mechanically-challenged paddle steamer making unsteady progress on the Nile (no-one seems very sure whether it’s moving up or down the river except, at one point when the engines fail, it definitely drifts out of control downstream). On board are the usual assortment of eccentric types most often associated with Agatha Christie novels. Needless to say none of them are what they appear to be although some of them are who they say they are and others may actually be better detectives than our heroic couple given that at least one other person works out whodunnit it before the penny drops for Ethelred. Frankly, I neither know nor particularly care whether Ethelred then tells Elsie. Not that any of the people astute or lucky enough to identify the killer(s) are at risk. The Egyptian and British authorities are convinced they know exactly what happened and would never reopen the case. The killer(s) has/have no reason to silence the amateur detectives. Indeed, doing so would alert the authorities to the idea their assessment of guilt was wrong.

So now your decision: this is a rerunning of the Agatha Christie jaunt on the Nile and it does its best to drag herrings of various hues across the trail to muddy the waters. You may be lucky and find it hilarious, but don’t bank on it. If you are going to read it, expect a clever puzzle to solve, some mild wit and fairly engaging characters who are initially intent on a holiday, but then find themselves in a genuinely dangerous situation. Why, you wonder, did I neglect to mention real danger until this dying gasp? Well, if L C Tyler is trying to write a comic novel, there can’t be anything even vaguely frightening. Even the Empress of Blandings could read this without losing her equanimity (assuming Monica Simmons was on hand to turn the pages, of course).

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.

Categories: Books Tags: Agatha Christie, detective fiction, Elsie Thirkettle, Ethelred Tressider, Herring on the Nile, humour, L C Tyler, murder, mystery

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan (1993)

April 26, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan (1993) (Season 5, episode 8) first appeared as a short story under the title, “The Curious Disappearance of the Opalsen Pearls” in 1923 and, by any standards, it’s a fairly slight case. Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) and Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) are staying at the Grand Metropolitan in Brighton where they meet the Opalsens. He made his money in oil and she spends his money collecting jewellery. When she tries to show off her latest acquisition, a necklace, they discover it has been stolen. It seems one of the maids is responsible but, quick as a flash, the great Hercule Poirot unmasks the real villains.

Hermione Norris looking guilty as the companion

Now we come to the adaptation by Anthony Horowitz which takes this thin gruel and spins it into a delightful period piece. This time, the location and props departments have outdone themselves in transporting “Brighton” back in time — it’s actually Eastbourne standing in for its more celebrated cousin, but we can gloss over this inconvenient fact. It’s quite wonderful to see the streets so full of period vehicles, the costumes are magnificent and the use of locations superb. So now to the new story. According to the doctor called to examine our great detective, he’s been working too hard and therefore must be despatched to Brighton to take the sea air. This will dispel the sore throat and sniffles, and generally restore the little grey cells to their usual vigour. With relief, Miss Lemon (Paula Moran) waves him off. We’re then introduced to a nice running joke for, as Hercule Poirot leaves what’s supposed to be Brighton railway station, he’s immediately accused of being Lucky Len and the reward claimed. For those of you not of an advanced age, newspapers used to promote themselves by sending out reasonably distinctive people and, if a person holding the newspaper correctly challenged them using specified words, they could claim a reward. Needless to say, wherever Poirot goes, he’s immediately challenged. We get a sight of the actual Lucky Len at the end of the show.

David Suchet and Hugh Fraser examine the drawer

Life at any seaside resort would not be complete without a “theatrical” experience or two and Brighton was, and is, no exception to this rule. The Theatre Royal and Pavilion Theatre have been beautifully preserved. This adaptation has Mr Opalsen (Trevor Cooper) as a theatrical impresario with his wife, Margaret (Sorcha Cusack) the leading lady. To maximise the publicity for his latest play, Mr Opalsen has purchased a famous set of pearls. We meet the playwright, Andrew Hall (Simon Shepherd) who’s having problems in clearing his gambling debts, the companion Celestine (Hermione Norris) and Saunders (Karl Johnson), the driver. The padding is spectacularly brave with Hercule Poirot seeing Mr Worthing book into the hotel, then realising the solution to the robbery lies in The Importance of Being Ernest, and finally framing Mr Opalsen for fraud, in part as payback for exploiting his name to get additional publicity for the play. Miss Lemon also gets back into the action, this time talking to London fences about jewellery.

Paula Moran collects evidence in London

Quite frankly, the audacity of it all is remarkable and the results are wonderful. This is completely in character and, although I disapprove of the romantic ending (which would be doomed to failure given Andrew Hall’s gambling addiction), this is yet another successful adaptation cum dramatic expansion of a short story to add to the others in this series. The only fly in all this ointment is the likely legal consequences. Mr Opalsen has been wrongly accused and arrested for fraud. This would give him actions in tort for false arrest and false imprisonment against the police. More excitingly, he could sue Hercule Poirot and bankrupt him in libel for, no matter that impresarios live and die by publicity, an accusation of fraud just before his theatre company is about to take off for a tour of America is hardly likely to bring in the audiences. Counterbalancing this defamation is the return of the pearls so audiences might come to see them, worn six nights per week and one matinée by the leading lady. The only other comment I would make is as to the box in which the pearls were stored. It actually looked no more substantial than something you could buy at Woolworths and the key itself was so small with one simple lever that anyone with a hair grip could open it in five seconds. It was not a secure box and, worse, kept in an unlocked drawer. That said, since it was under “guard” most of the time, the screams of Celestine would alert all those around her to the presence of a robber with a gun in the hotel bedroom. Well, I did say the adaptation of The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan was audacious. Perhaps entertainingly foolhardy would have been a better choice of words.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan, Anthony Horowitz, David Suchet, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, Paula Moran

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Mirror (1993)

April 26, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Mirror (1993) (Season 5, episode 7) is an adaptation of a short story that first appeared in 1932. It was then expanded for inclusion in Murder in the Mews, a collection published in 1937. Such is always the way with an author. You write something one day and then see a way in which it can be improved the next. Except, of course, the expansion does little to help a modern television company looking for a one-hour show. The challenge for Anthony Horowitz as scriptwriter, therefore, is to remain faithful to the spirit of the original while adding to it. In many ways, the strategy adopted here for filling out the content is rather clever. The textual story begins with Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) peremptorily summoned by Sir Gervase Chevenix-Gore (Iain Cuthbertson) and, when he arrives, he finds his client dead. Since the key to the case is the eponymous mirror, the television version has Sir Gervase outbid Hercule Poirot for the mirror at an auction and then use the mirror to lure the detective to his home and accept a commission to investigate an initially unspecified fraud. In other words, Hercule Poirot would not usually have forgiven the man for his rudeness, but would swallow his pride if he thought he would get the mirror in part-payment for his services.

Vanda (Zena Walker) asks her spirit for guidance

So, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) set off into the countryside by train. We have backstory showing Ruth (Emma Fielding) has already married Lake (Richard Lintern) with Ms Lingard (Fiona Walker) secretly observing, and our dynamic duo meet Susan (Tushka Bergen) on the train. Hugo (Jeremy Northam) meets them at the station and we see his workshop where he’s trying to develop stainless-steel framed furniture for the market. Sir Gervaise is threatening to cut him off without a penny which would leave him unable to pursue his commercial dreams. When we arrive at the house, Sir Gervaise wants Poirot to investigate Lake for an apparent fraud. More interestingly, we then come to another Agatha Christie supernatural element. The wife of Sir Gervaise is called Vanda (Zena Walker). She believes she has a spirit guide from Ancient Egypt who has warned her that a death is coming. Hercule Poirot is fascinated and gets details.

We then follow the plot of the original story except now Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are house guests. Captain Hastings hears the gong for dinner, but Hercule Poirot does not. They both hear what they assume to be a shot and, when they break into the study, find Sir Gervaise has apparently shot himself in the head holding a gun in his left hand. This looks to be a suicide with the mirror broken by the bullet. When Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) arrives on the scene, he’s all for it being self-inflicted, but Hercule Poirot points out that the man was right-handed and he’s curious as to where the bullet is.

Hugo (Jeremy Northam) and Susan (Tushka Bergen) talk about furniture

We then have some nice padding involving Lake’s fraud and get into the ending where Anthony Horowitz has outdone himself to flesh out the supernatural element into a full-blown manifestation of the Egyptian spirit. It’s all magnificently silly but it does nicely bring us to the hour mark (allowing for ads) without it looking too forced. The pleasing thing about this particular episode is that, for once, the adaptation is meticulously fair in showing us all the minor hints and clues in plain sight. Too often, the answer turns on something only the great detective would have known. This time, we get every detail and have the same chance to work out who must have done it. Equally of interest is the supernatural element. As I have commented elsewhere, Agatha Christie was writing at a time when table-turning and other spiritualist events were common. She could therefore hint at current social trends and be more immediately understood. Today, we’ve moved away from accepting spiritualism as real and now indulge our interests in more extreme forms of the supernatural. What would have been considered really spooky ninety years ago would be far too tame for today’s audience. That means the modern scriptwriter is working on a knife edge to keep the sense of the original while making it less naive for our sensibilities. Finally, a word must be said about Iain Cuthbertson who contrives to be rather magnificently unpleasant in such a short space of time before being bumped off. The rest of the cast do enough to be distinctive without distracting our attention from David Suchet and Hugh Fraser. Overall Dead Man’s Mirror proves to be one of the better episodes with Hercule Poirot seen to be relying on key people to be gullible when he pushes their buttons.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Dead Man’s Mirror, Anthony Horowitz, David Suchet, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, Iain Cuthbertson, Philip Jackson, spiritualism, supernatural

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman (1993)

April 21, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Well, as adaptations and embellishments of short stories go, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman (Season V, Episode 5) is something of a triumph and full credit to Clive Exton for taking a thin story first published in 1923 and, with one minor blemish, making it entertaining for the full hour. Let’s start with the heart of Miss Lemon (Paula Moran). She moves through the novels and short stories as an essentially sexless creature, always responsible and efficient in her role. Yet here there’s a risk she may fly the nest and leave Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) for Mr Graves (Leonard Preston), an ex-Navy man working as a private secretary to an Italian count. For once, Poirot rises above selfishness and encourages Miss Lemon to find happiness if it’s on offer. He seems sanguine that this may trigger the departure of his valued secretary. Indeed, he even volunteers to meet the man and both he and Hastings find him acceptable for Miss Lemon. During the conversation, this Mr Graves even shyly admits to owning a small motor cruiser. It was offered to him at a giveaway price as he was leaving the navy. As a final gesture, he tells Hercule Poirot that his employer, Count Foscatini may be acting on behalf of the Italian government to recover some documents being used to blackmail someone politically important. Naturally, he doesn’t have the position to invite Hercule Poirot into the case, but it’s an indication Hercule Poirot’s little grey cells may be required in the future.

Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson), Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) and Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser)

Hercule Poirot is also loyally following Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) as the latter considers the possibility of buying one of those wonderful Italian sports cars of the period. There’s some tooing and froing before Hastings decides to take the plunge, witnessing an argument in the showroom as he writes out his cheque. During all this Poirot remains convinced the only point of a car is that it has four wheels that will not fall off and get him where he needs to go with the least alarm.

At this point, we pick up the plot of the original short story as Poirot and Hastings are dining with Dr Hawker (Arthur Cox), a neighbour, when a telephone call is received from a patient. The maid relays the message that Count Foscatini (Sidney Kean) says he’s being murdered and would someone please come and help. When they arrive at the flat, they find the Count dead, meet a spooky Siamese cat, and call for the police (not because of the cat, you understand). Poirot sums up the position of the body next the phone and the dining table set for two. He talks to the building’s chef (David Verrey) who confirms sending two soups, Dover soles and a rice soufflé, almost all of which was eaten. When they return to the flat, Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) has taken charge and, to their surprise, Mr Graves walks in. It seems he’s been exaggerating his status a little. Rather than a private secretary, he’s actually a man servant. Ah, the things men say during early courtship to talk the bird down from the tree. When the fingerprints on the two coffee cups and wine glasses are analysed, it appears that the Count was eating with Mario Asciano (Vincent Riotta), a known Italian criminal. This is presumably the blackmailer Mr Graves was talking about.

The Chef (David Verrey) remembers everything

Hercule Poirot and Hastings therefore hotfoot round to the Italian Embassy. Sadly, the high-ranking officials refuse help but, as they are leaving, a member of staff tells them that a forerunner of the Mafia, a dangerous criminal organisation, is almost certainly involved. When Mario Asciano is tracked down, the burnt ashes of the blackmail papers are found but no money. He’s arrested for the murder. Except all is not well in the garden as Miss Lemon’s research shows there’s no such title as the Count of Foscatini and the post mortem shows the Count did not eat before dying. There’s a nice piece of stage business involving a mirror with Hastings trying to distinguish his left from right and then an interminable car chase as the real killer tries to make a run for it with the money. While it’s always wonderful to see so many period vehicles driven by stunt drivers in the recreation of a slow-motion chase, this was excessive.

A Humber 6 and the star of the episode

So there we have it. In a way, the mystery element is rather superfluous. It’s rather obvious whodunnit although the motive is not without merit. Miss Lemon does end up with a new man in her life. With Graves no longer having an employer, someone has to look after the Siamese cat — if you remember, she was mourning the loss of her last cat in The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb, also adapted by Clive Exton. Hercule Poirot shows he’s a caring employer. Captain Hastings is left to worry about his new car and, for once, Inspector Japp can emerge from a Poirot mystery without having been made to look a complete fool. All in all, The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman is a superior episode with Leonard Preston particularly pleasing as the love interest.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman, Clive Exton, David Suchet, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, Leonard Preston, murder, Paula Moran, Philip Jackson

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Yellow Iris (1993)

March 15, 2012 David Marshall Leave a comment

television

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Yellow Iris (1993) (Season V, Episode 3) continues the adaptation of short stories into one-hour episodes. This is somewhat ironic in the case of The Yellow Iris because Agatha Christie herself took the time and trouble to expand the story into the novel Sparkling Cyanide, albeit not featuring the original Hercule Poirot. This would never do, of course, when David Suchet is now synonymous with the role of Hercule Poirot. Better to stick with Poirot in the shorter version than to introduce Colonel Race. It would only confuse us. Indeed, when ITV did make Sparkling Cyanide, all confusion was avoided by naming a minor character Colonel Geoffrey Reece — long live Hercule Poirot!

Pauline Moran, David Suchet and Hugh Fraser admire the yellow iris

So The Yellow Iris is both good and bad. As we have come to expect from this series, the production values are first class. No expense is spared to reproduce Buenos Aires as one military government is due to replace another. We have soldiers in the streets with period tanks and troop carriers to lend authenticity to the whole. The inventiveness of the location finders and the way the scenes are set up is a delight to behold. However, nothing visual can cover up the thinness of the material. Essentially Hercule Poirot is supposed to be passing through Buenos Aires on the way to visit Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) but, before he can navigate through his stop-over, he’s a witness to a death in a French restaurant. Then, before you can say [whatever long word captures your imagination], he’s arrested and deported as a spy. The Argentine General’s threat to call in the French Consul is a nicely judged insult. This unhappy combination of events gives Hercule Poirot an unsolved crime (if such it be) in his resumé. This rankles so, when Miss Lemon (Pauline Moran) brings him a yellow iris almost two years later, he’s immediately interested. There were yellow irises on the table when the first death occurred. Captain Hastings confirms a new French restaurant with the same name is due to open in London. Such a coincidence is not to be ignored and a quick visit confirms a table has been reserved on the opening night by the same group (less the dead woman, of course).

Death by yellow iris

The first scenes in the Argentinian version of the restaurant are well done although there’s a relentless padding to fill out the time. This involves a tango between two of the diners and a sultry song being sung. However, when the meal is rerun in London, it’s immediately obvious who the killer must be and how the murder was committed. Perhaps I’ve just read too many detective novels but, despite the best efforts of the scriptwriter, Anthony Horowitz, and the director Peter Barber-Fleming, to distract us, the last ten minutes are just treading water until our suspicions are confirmed. There’s actually a much better version of the same methodology in a Father Brown story where he solves the crime without ever leaving a room — it’s all in the footsteps he hears. Anyway, it’s always good to see David Troughton, in this case as the grieving husband, and the rest of the cast acquit themselves well despite the limited nature of the plot. It’s fairly good despite the threadbare story and, if you want to prove yourself as a superior armchair detective, this is a perfect opportunity for you to identify the killer early.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Yellow Iris, David Suchet, David Troughton, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, Pauline Moran

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Case of the Missing Will (1993)

March 14, 2012 David Marshall 2 comments

television

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Case of the Missing Will (1993) (Season V, Episode 4) is something of an oddity. For all we have the usual cast of stalwarts with David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser as Captain Hastings, Pauline Moran as Miss Lemon and Philip Jackson as Inspector Japp, this is essentially an original story rather than an adaptation of the short story bearing the title which first appears in 1923 before being collected in Poirot Investigates, first published in 1924. In most of the other television shows featuring Poirot, there’s at least a tip of the hat by the scriptwriter to the Agatha Christie original. Perhaps surprisingly, Douglas Watkinson obviously wrote down the title at the top of a blank sheet of paper and then decided to write his own story to go with the title. Or perhaps someone at Granada Television instructed this change. Who knows after so many years.

Beth Goddard as a very modern girl

So let’s take this step by step. The original has a young lady approach Poirot with a puzzle. A will has “gone missing” and she would like him to find it for her. After a little thought, Hercule Poirot complies and so, through his agency, the woman meets the condition in the discovered will and inherits the estate. Hercule Poirot accepts her intelligence in asking the best detective in the world to crack the mystery and walks away. This story has us start with the childless Andrew Marsh (Mark Kingston), a wealthy businessman, announcing the terms of his will in the 1920s. Some years later, as Hitler and Mussolini are starting to make waves in Europe, the action relocates to Cambridge University where two of the three children who heard the announcement are now students. The theme of this episode is the pressure for more gender equality. Under the terms of his will, Violet (Beth Goddard) is expected to marry and effectively gets nothing. The patriarchal Marsh assumes her future husband will provide for her. John Sidaway (Terrence Hardiman) and Peter Baker (Neil Stuke) are to receive what would, in those days, have been a reasonable capital sum. They are, respectively the children of Sarah Siddaway (Rowena Cooper), a friend of the family and an Australian woman who had come over to England as Marsh’s housekeeper. When Hercule Poirot comes to meet the family again, Marsh tell him that the will is to be changed and our detective hero is to act as the executor. The intention is to remove the bequest of the bulk of his estate from a medical foundation, and to leave everything to Violet. Before he can make this change, he’s found dead.

Rowena Cooper as a loving mother and loyal friend

So far, so good. There’s a good command of the two different periods with the Cambridge scenes particularly well done. There’s also a nice moment in the London underground. A researcher must have found one of the older style escalators. Except the plot left me somewhat confused. When the family and Hercule Poirot come to the offices of the family solicitor, he announces that the will has gone missing. At no point thereafter does there seem to be any serious attempt to find the will. The police are not informed. It’s just assumed the property will now pass on intestacy. Frankly, this is incomprehensible. There are innumerable witnesses to attest to the terms of the will and the solicitor would confirm that his client had given no instructions to destroy or otherwise revoke the will. The fact the will had evidently been removed from the solicitor’s office without permission would fuel a murder enquiry. The Probate Court would have granted probate on the original will, giving all the property to the medical foundation. If anyone tried to establish a claim based on intestacy, this would have been taken as prima facie evidence of the murder.

Anyway, Hercule Poirot defines the terms of the investigation to decide which of the three children is Marsh’s illegitimate heir. Since I was having really difficulty in distinguishing between the two young men (even though one was at University and the other was in the army) I rather gave up trying to follow who might be the child of whom or might have been the killer. If I had watched this from the DVD, it would have been easy go back through the episode to work it out after the event. But since I’m watching these episodes rerunning on a terrestrial channel, I’m left with an imperfect grasp of what happened. I understand how and why the murder took place but, even now, I can’t honestly say I care. This is one of the worst episodes of all time. If a scriptwriter is doing nothing more than adapt an existing plot, he or she can blame the quality of the source material if the adaptation faithfully reproduces it. But if you are writing an original, then a professional writer researches the law and gets a plot to make sense. Then, in the casting, we should get people more easily distinguishable.

For reviews of other Agatha Christie stories and novels, see:

Categories: TV and anime Tags: Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Case of the Missing Will, Beth Goddard, David Suchet, detective fiction, Hercule Poirot, Hugh Fraser, Pauline Moran, Philip Jackson, Rowena Cooper

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