Agatha Christie's Marple on ITV1 – Review

Julia McKenzie Takes Over as the Spinster Sleuth

Aug 31, 2009 Robin Jarossi

The Queen of Crime is unfashionable but her popularity never dims, which is why ITV1 has lavished a stellar cast on Jane Marple's return in A Pocket Full of Rye.

The whole mysterious affair is well documented. There are millions of witnesses. And yet the combined genius of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot probably couldn’t unravel this crime riddle – what do so many people see in Agatha Christie?

Any probe into her past form leaves the investigator reeling on the figures detailing her monster sales and astonishing popularity.

World's Biggest-Selling Crime Writer

She is the world’s undisputed highest-selling crime writer with – readers, better have a seat for this – one-billion books sold in English alone. Make that two-billion if you throw in those translated into 45 other languages. And she’s been translated into more languages than Shakespeare, for Gawd’s sake.

Yet her stories are little more than childish puzzles with ludricrous twists – the aeroplane steward who kills with a blowpipe (Death in the Clouds), the young woman who doesn’t notice that her flatmate is actually her stepmother in disguise (Third Girl). Her characters barely flicker with more life than her corpses, the prose is flat.

Golden Age

Contemporaries from the so-called Golden Age of detective stories, such as Margery Allingham and Dorothy L Sayers, still sell respectably but have faded a bit, while Christie is always with us (The Mousetrap, anyone?). September even features Christie Week 2009 (13th-20th), with unpublished short stories, South Bank debates in London and other celebrations.

The Mystery of the Whodunit Queen Who Would Not Die has no dénouement and will stay an open case for as long her novels sell by the truckload, the stage and radio productions continue and ITV1 keeps making Poirot and regenerating the ‘irrepressible’ Miss Marple.

Julia McKenzie

So keen were they to give Julia McKenzie a big launch as she takes over from Geraldine McEwan that ITV1 has lavished a stellar cast on her debut case, A Pocket Full of Rye.

It’s an A-Z of many of British television’s most current faces – including Helen Baxendale, Joseph Beattie, Paul Brooke, Ken Campbell, Ken Cranham, Rupert Graves, Laura Haddock, Ralf Little, Matthew Macfadyen, Anna Madeley, Ben Miles, Hattie Morahan, Prunella Scales, Edward Tudor Pole and Liz White, with the late Wendy Richard in her last role as Mrs Crump.

Joan Hickson

Almost as much nail-biting surrounds the arrival of a new actress playing Marple as the new Doctor Who. Among those touted in the press for the role relinquished by McEwan last year after 12 films were Victoria Wood, Julie Walters, Prunella Scales, Anna Massey and Eileen Atkins.

But it is McKenzie who follows in the tweed costumes of some adored predecessors, including Margaret Rutherford, Angela Lansbury and Joan Hickson, who, despite the credibility-sapping plots, gave a near pitch-perfect performance before bowing out aged 86.

Less Playful than Geraldine McEwan

So how does McKenzie compare? She’s a more jolly presence than the forensic, bird-like Hickson, having more charm but less mystique. Fans may also miss the playfulness McEwan gave the character.

In McKenzie’s first outing, Marple sticks her nose into a series of murders based around Yew Tree Lodge, owned by rich old git Rex Fortescue (Cranham), the first victim. Naturally enough, there’s a daft theme to the killings, which all allude to the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence.

Vigorous Sex

The film is ‘based on’ a Christie original, the unoriginal bits including some vigorous rumpy-pumpy in the golf house. Apart from that there are the usual stuck-up toffs, plodding policemen, shifty servants and much tea-drinking – some of it poisoned.

It’s a handsomely mounted production that doesn’t scrimp on the vintage cars, aeroplanes and stately homes and slips along at a good pace. It sticks closely to the template for Sunday night period whodunits.

Matthew Macfadyen

No sooner is Rex poisoned than Insp Neele (Macfadyen) is asking boring questions about alibis etc of every member of the cast, who all coast through proceedings keeping a straight face.

US television makes The Wire and The Shield. Britain is stuck in the past with drawing-room whodunits.

It’s a tame way to round off the weekend before getting back to work, and about as memorable as a game of Cluedo, though less fun.

Still, ITV has sold Marple to 130 territories and no doubt millions will tune in again to watch Julia McKenzie – unless she proves so unpopular she manages to kill off a franchise that seems impervious to cast changes and criticism.

But that’s about as likely as hardened coppers welcoming some sleuthing from an elderly busybody.

Next up – Murder Is Easy, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans and They Do It with Mirrors.

• Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye, ITV1 Sunday 6 September, 2009 8-10pm

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Julia McKenzie as Marple