Agatha

Regular readers will know that we spend quality time with Agatha Christie, in particular with Miss. Marple. She makes a change, if nothing else, from a viewing diet too rich in Maigret.

Given that, as all good ologists know - for example anthropologists and psychologists, all good things come in sevens, one of the memory tests which I have for myself is the seven ladies of marple, with the seven ladies in question being listed at references 1 thru 7 below. The author, the lady herself, the four ladies who have portrayed her serially on our television, and an also-ran, a lady who might well have played Miss. Marple but didn't, at least to our knowledge.

A test which is real enough as when I think to test myself, which might be around once a week, one or more of them usually go missing. Curiously, it is the lady who, to my mind, is the best of the bunch, Joan Hickson, who goes missing most often. Missing for hours, or perhaps even a day or so, then popping back into mind for no apparent reason.

A supplementary test, very much work in progress, is not only to recall the names, but also to recall an image, perhaps complete with a television mannerism, something like the little hunching of the shoulders of Geraldine McEwan.

We are presently doing this last, not for the first time but newly chargeable from Prime, and these adaptations are, to my mind, rather badly overcooked. The plots stray too far from the original, are too complicated, are too noisy, both aurally and visually. and are over acted. This last in the sense that there are too many eminences and the poor old director can't keep them all in rein. A problem which can rear its head in a slightly different way when the lead actor in a long-running and successful series is there too long and starts to think that he or she is both in charge and indispensable. Think Noele Gordon and the entertaining film about her called 'Nolly'.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Marple.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Rutherford.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Hickson.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_McEwan.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_McKenzie.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Massey.