RogerBW's Blog

Murder at the Vicarage 05 September 2022

1993 audio adaptation by Michael Bakewell of Christie's 1930 mystery, in five 30-minute episodes.

This was the first Miss Marple novel, though the character had been introduced in short stories, and a particular trick perhaps seemed less hoary in 1930 than it does now – but it would be fair to argue that that's my fault for remembering it.

As well as June Whitfield as Miss Marple, we get Imelda Staunton in a sadly small part as the vicar's flighty wife, and a variety of other ladies whose voices alas rather blend into each other; at times it's really quite hard to tell who's meant to be admitting to what and with whom. (I suspect that drama schools may teach everyone to speak in the same way, which is fine on film or TV…) On the male side, John Baddeley does his best with a thankless part as Inspector Slack, while Nigel Davenport has a good turn as a somewhat toned-down Dr Haydock. (Quite surprisingly for a Bakewell adaptation, which are usually very close to the original text, most of his stuff about crime being a disease which will one day be understood and cured is cut here – perhaps because in 1993 it was felt that there needn't be as much excuse for his being opposed to the death penalty.)

Nothing outstanding, but a good solid adaptation.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1