New Agatha
Aunty - well Aunty's aunty, the Beeb - has come through with a new spin on Miss Marple. I guess I'm a bit of a MM TV production purist - for me, Joan Hickson in the long British telemovies from 15 years ago is the definitive Miss Marple, reigning over Margaret Rutherford and Angela Lansbury from the movie versions - but Geraldine McEwan offers an interesting spin on MM, fleshing out the old spinster's wicked sense of humour that was hinted at by Christie in the original stories (who apparently based the character on her own grandmother).These productions also offer new twists not originally written by Christie. Last night's "The Body in the Library" revealed two lesbian murderers who sure weren't "that way" in the book. Apparently, these twists have been included to provide additional surprises for old Christie hacks like myself who smugly assume they know everything that's coming. Last night's new twist worked, hopefully future ones will too.
It's a wet-dream cast of British A1 character actors - Simon Callow, Joanna Lumley, James Fox, Jack Davenport and Ian Richardson, with Derek Jacobi, Janet McTeer and Jane Asher to come - as well as amusing appearances by Little Britain's David Williams and The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss (not to mention Aussie hotty Adam Garcia).
If Margaret and David deigned to review TV movies, it's the sort of production Mags would give 4 stars to while David might only give 3. I'll split the difference and say 3.5. Entertaining but diluted Christie. And about friggin time there's finally something to watch now on Sunday nights!
posted by Sam @ Monday, March 07, 2005
1 Comments:
It has a wonderful script with great exchanges: referring to Callows detective ' he's a bit superior isn't he?' and Dolly/Patsy/Joanna says ' Yes. I expect it's from having all those men under him'. loved it, cheers, Ms Brown.
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