The Miss Marple Collection

[angelophile]

"Mr. Rafiel's bloodhound - his avenging angel. She looks so harmless, doesn't she? But her camouflage is perfect because she is partly just what she seems - a gossipy old village lady, but her logic is ruthless and her powers of synthesis formidable. And above all she never lets go."

I've recently been addicted to the BBC's adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories when I picked up the DVD in response to the star studded, but lamentable, recent ITV productions. I've always had a soft spot for Miss Marple, far more so than Christie's more famous creation Poirot.

Originally airing between 1984 and 1992 the BBC adaptated all twelve of the Miss Marple novels, featuring the superlative Joan Hickson in the title role. I remember watching many of the adaptations as a child (a good murder mystery is just the ticket for kids. I certainly recall being terrified by the chilling murderer in The Sleeping Murder, with their hands like "grey, monkey paws".) The complete DVD collection is 1,360 minutes of solid, glossy crime, with some fabulous scripts from playwrights like Alan Plater, a cast of great British character actors (Joan Sims, Peter Davison, Samantha Bond, Paul Eddington, Donald Pleasence, Liz Fraser, Josh Ackland and many others), and directed by some memorable directors, including the Boulting Brother's Roy Boulting.

Most impressive though is Joan Hickson, who's widely regarded as the definitive Miss Marple. (After seeing Hickson in an adaptation of her "Appointment With Death," as early as 1946 Christie reportedly sent her a note expressing the hope she would one day "play my dear Miss Marple.") She play Miss Marple not as a simpering twitterer nor as a comical eccentric, but as a rather stiff upright observer whose gaze can be unflinching. As she says in Nemesis: "He called me Nemesis, you know, and he wasn't being entirely humorous". You might invite Margaret Rutherford's Marple out for drinks. You'd probably wonder why sprightly Angela Lansbury was hanging out with all the fuddy duddies. You'd certainly pretend to be out if ghastly Geraldine McEwan battered on the door with a gin bottle.. It's Joan Hickson who you'd choose to solve your murder. Hickson quietly layers Miss Marple with the many qualities that make her a good detective and a good person—keen reasoning skills, a willingness to really look and listen, patience, a little sadness and cynicism, perseverance, and, of course, an ear for gossip. As Inspector Slack memorably states in one of the episodes, "She's a little old lady who knits and wears lace. She also has a mind like a bacon slicer. It's a very good disguise." And all the while quintesentially the grande dame of the village circle - unflinching and unforgiving, whilst politely sipping at her tea.

The collection of adaptations is excellent and, unlike the more recent ITV adaptations, true to the books with slight exceptions (the wonderful, unsubtle, long-suffering and insufferable Inspector Slack is slipped into a couple of the adaptations where he was otherwise absent), but there's none of the playing hard and fast with the stories or attempts to modernize them - the period detail is near perfect and feels true, rather than forcing political correctness onto a character that would undoubtedly be of her time. It's a strength of the performances and the screenwriting that even the most irritating Christie-isms, where red herrings crop up to the point of ridiculousness, don't spoil the enjoyment of the adaptations of a whole.

The boxed set includes The Body in the Library, At Bertram’s Hotel, The Moving Finger, Nemesis, A Murder Is Announced, 4.50 from Paddington, A Pocketful of Rye, A Caribbean Mystery, Murder at the Vicarage, They Do it with Mirrors, Sleeping Murder, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, of which my favourite is probably Nemesis, where Miss Marple is a fearless and unforgiving avenging angel in tweed.

All of which, with the unforgettable (trust me, I've tried) theme music makes this one of the most enjoyable boxed sets I've picked up in a very long time.