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Agatha Christie's Marple | |
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Also known as | Marple |
Starring |
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Music by | Dominik Scherrer |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 6 |
No. of episodes | 23 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Running time | 88–94 minutes |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 12 December 2004 – 29 December 2013 |
Related | |
Miss Marple |
Agatha Christie's Marple (or simply Marple) is a British ITV television programme loosely based on the books and short stories by British crime novelist Agatha Christie. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to the third series, until her retirement from the role, and by Julia McKenzie from the fourth series onwards. Unlike the counterpart TV series Agatha Christie's Poirot , the show took many liberties with Christie’s works, most notably adding Miss Marple’s character to the adaptations of novels in which she never appeared. Following the conclusion of the sixth series, the BBC acquired the rights for the production of Agatha Christie adaptations, suggesting that ITV would be unable to make a seventh series of Marple. [1] [2]
Agatha Christie's Marple follows the adventures of Miss Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in the quiet little village of St. Mary Mead. During her many visits to friends and relatives in other villages (and sometimes when simply being at home), Miss Marple often stumbles upon or hears about mysterious murders, which she helps solve. Although the police are sometimes reluctant to accept Miss Marple's help, her reputation and unparalleled powers of observation eventually win them over.
During her adventures, Miss Marple is aided by close friends, relatives, or other allies that she meets, which include Tommy and Tuppence (protagonists of another series of Christie novels).[ citation needed ]
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The only character to appear in every episode is Miss Marple herself, played by Geraldine McEwan through series 3 and by Julia McKenzie from series 4 onwards. [3] [4]
A few other characters appear in more than one episode, although they are not always played by the same actor. Exceptions are Joanna Lumley, who plays Mrs Dolly Bantry in The Body in the Library and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, [5] and Stephen Churchett, who appears as the coroner in four episodes.
Dr Haydock appears in three episodes, but is played by three actors: Robin Soans in The Body in the Library, Robert Powell in The Murder at the Vicarage and Neil Stuke in The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. Jason Rafiel, an old friend of Marple's, was voiced by Herbert Lom (who also made an on-screen appearance as Mr Dufosse in The Murder at the Vicarage) in Nemesis and played by Antony Sher in A Caribbean Mystery.
The series also featured real-life characters: Winston Churchill appeared in The Sittaford Mystery , Noël Coward in 4.50 from Paddington , Louis Armstrong in At Bertram's Hotel , and Ian Fleming and James Bond in A Caribbean Mystery .
Series | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
First aired | Last aired | |||
1 | 4 | 12 December 2004 | 2 January 2005 | |
2 | 4 | 5 February 2006 | 30 April 2006 | |
3 | 4 | 23 September 2007 | 1 January 2009 | |
4 | 4 | 6 September 2009 | 15 June 2011 | |
5 | 4 | 30 August 2010 | 2 January 2011 | |
6 | 3 | 16 June 2013 | 29 December 2013 |
Each series consists of four feature-length episodes, except series six which has only three episodes. The first six episodes were all adaptations of Miss Marple novels by Christie. Subsequent episodes were derived both from works featuring Miss Marple and also Christie novels that did not feature the character. The title of the series removes the word Miss from Miss Marple, to match the title of the Agatha Christie's Poirot series. [6]
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Marple was filmed in various locations, including London, the villages of Englefield in Berkshire, Chilham in Kent, Turville in Buckinghamshire and Blewbury in Oxfordshire.[ citation needed ]
Windsor Guildhall in Windsor was featured as the fictional Melchester in Murder at the Vicarage ,[ citation needed ] the interior of Highclere Castle was used in 4.50 From Paddington ,[ citation needed ] and Knebworth House was used that work and in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and in Greenshaw's Folly .[ citation needed ] Hatfield House was used as Chimneys in The Secret of Chimneys .[ citation needed ]
Hambleden was used as St Mary Mead and Dorney Court featured in The Body in the Library as Gossington Hall, home of the Bantrys, and also as the vicarage in "The Moving Finger" Fawley Court in Buckinghamshire was used as Stoneygates in They Do It with Mirrors and The Grotto was used as the exterior of the secret folly in Endless Night .[ clarification needed ] [7]
In Why Didn't They Ask Evans? , the Castle Savage scenes were largely filmed at Loseley Park near Guildford.[ citation needed ] A Caribbean Mystery was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, although the beach scenes were shot at Boulders Beach.[ citation needed ] For the production based on Endless Night , scenes were filmed in Dorchester. [8]
The exterior of Marina Gregg's house in The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side were filmed at North Mymms Park,[ citation needed ] and the cemetery in Nemesis was filmed at Waverley Abbey.[ citation needed ]
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Christie's twelve novels featuring Miss Marple were all adapted for the series. The Murder at the Vicarage , The Body in the Library , 4.50 from Paddington , and A Murder is Announced in Series 1, Sleeping Murder and The Moving Finger in Series 2, At Bertram's Hotel and Nemesis in Series 3, A Pocket Full of Rye and They Do It with Mirrors in Series 4, The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side in Series 5 and A Caribbean Mystery in Series 6.
In addition, several short stories featuring Miss Marple were adapted into full-length episodes across the series. The Blue Geranium in Series 5, elements of The Herb of Death were incorporated into the adaptation of The Secret of Chimneys in Series 5, while Greenshaw's Folly and The Thumb Mark of St. Peter were combined into one story for Series 6.
Across the twenty-three adaptations, many changes have been made from the source material.
Agatha Christie's Marple was originally aired in the United States on PBS within the anthology series Mystery! , where it is presented as Agatha Christie's "Miss Marple", before airing on the anthology series Masterpiece Theatre . [9] The series is broadcast to the whole of Canada on CBC and in French on Radio-Canada. In Australia, Agatha Christie's Marple airs on ABC1.
Marple is also being broadcast on ATV World in Hong Kong, on EBS and MegaTV in South Korea and on CCTV-8 in China. China, however, refused to show The Body in the Library and Murder Is Easy, due to the involvement of a lesbian and an incestuous relationship respectively. Why Didn't They Ask Evans? was extensively edited, due to the involvement of War-period China.
In Norway, the series has been airing on state broadcaster NRK1 as "Miss Marple". In Sweden, Marple airs on TV4, the biggest commercial TV station. In Poland, the series airs on Ale Kino+. In the Czech Republic it is broadcast under the title Slečna Marplová, Czech for "Miss Marple".
In Brazil, the series airs on HBO Brasil. In the Netherlands it is broadcast on BBC First.
Series | No. | Title | Air date | Ratings | Ave. ratings | Ref. | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Viewers | Rank | Viewers | Rank | |||||
1 | 1 | The Body in the Library | 12 December 2004 | 8.72 | 14 | 7.70 | 15 | [10] |
2 | The Murder at the Vicarage | 19 December 2004 | 8.36 | 11 | ||||
3 | 4.50 from Paddington | 26 December 2004 | 5.95 | 22 | ||||
4 | A Murder Is Announced | 2 January 2005 | 7.78 | 14 | ||||
2 | 1 | Sleeping Murder | 5 February 2006 | 8.74 | 12 | 7.79 | 13 | [10] |
2 | The Moving Finger | 12 February 2006 | 7.89 | 14 | ||||
3 | By the Pricking of My Thumbs | 19 February 2006 | 7.93 | 14 | ||||
4 | The Sittaford Mystery | 30 April 2006 | 6.58 | 13 | ||||
3 | 1 | At Bertram's Hotel | 23 September 2007 | 5.41 | 17 | 5.32 | 19 | [10] |
2 | Ordeal by Innocence | 30 September 2007 | 5.54 | 19 | ||||
3 | Towards Zero | 3 August 2008 | 5.84 | 11 | ||||
4 | Nemesis | 1 January 2009 | 4.48 | 27 | ||||
4 | 1 | A Pocket Full of Rye | 6 September 2009 | 5.39 | 14 | 4.92 | 15 | [10] |
2 | Murder Is Easy | 13 September 2009 | 4.86 | 16 | ||||
3 | They Do It with Mirrors | 1 January 2010 | 5.55 | 12 | ||||
4 | Why Didn't They Ask Evans? | 15 June 2011 | 3.86 | 16 | ||||
5 | 1 | The Pale Horse | 30 August 2010 | 4.97 | 15 | 4.99 | 15 | [10] |
2 | The Secret of Chimneys | 27 December 2010 | 4.69 | 16 | ||||
3 | The Blue Geranium | 29 December 2010 | 5.71 | 13 | ||||
4 | The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side | 2 January 2011 | 4.58 | 17 | ||||
6 | 1 | A Caribbean Mystery | 16 June 2013 | 4.31 | 13 | 4.42 | 14 | [10] |
2 | Greenshaw's Folly | 23 June 2013 | 4.39 | 14 | ||||
3 | Endless Night | 29 December 2013 | 4.57 | 14 |
In 2005, Geraldine McEwan was nominated for a Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her performance in Series 1. [11] The series was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Program, in 2005. [12] In 2006, series composer, Dominik Scherrer was the winner of a Gold Medal at the New York Festivals for TV Programming & Promotion - Craft: Program - Best Original Music/Lyrics, as well as receiving an Ivor Novello Award nomination for Best Television Soundtrack, in 2011. [13] The series was Inducted into the Online Film & Television Association – Television Hall of Fame: Productions, in 2014. [14]
In the United States, Agatha Christie's Marple was made available on DVD from Acorn Media, where the entire series is available in individual sets, and a set containing the first three series. The series has been released in it’s entirety, in both individual and complete sets, in the UK, via ITV DVD, and in Australia, originally from ABC DVD, then Roadshow Entertainment. The series will, for the first time, receive a Blu-ray release, consisting of the first three series in a limited edition set from ViaVision in Australia, in 2024. In Germany, the DVDs were distributed by Polyband/WVG in individual sets, a complete limited edition set, followed by a complete standard edition set.
Series | Release date | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Region 1 | Region 2 (UK) | Region 2 (Germany) | Region 4 [lower-alpha 1] | Region B (Blu-ray Australia) | |
Series 1 | 24 May 2005 [16] | 14 March 2005 [17] | 27 September 2019 [18] | 7 April 2005 [lower-alpha 2] | — |
Series 2 | 29 August 2006 [19] | 17 July 2006 [20] | 29 November 2019 [21] | 1 August 2007 | — |
Series 3 | 9 October 2007 [22] | 6 October 2008 [23] | 31 January 2020 [24] | 1 April 2010 [25] | — |
Series 4 | 4 August 2009 [26] | 4 January 2010 [27] | 27 March 2020 [28] | 4 November 2010 [29] | — |
Series 5 | 31 August 2010 [30] | 20 June 2011 [31] | 26 June 2020 [32] | 3 November 2011 [33] | — |
Series 6 | 30 September 2014 [34] | 6 January 2014 [35] | 28 August 2020 [36] | 2 April 2014 [37] | — |
Collection sets | |||||
Series 1 & 2 | — | 17 July 2006 [38] | — | 7 November 2007 [39] | — |
Series 1–3 | 2 November 2010 [40] | 31 May 2010 [41] | — | 8 July 2020 [42] | 4 December 2024 [43] |
Series 1–4 | — | 16 August 2010 [44] | — | — | — |
Series 1–5 | — | 15 August 2011 [45] | — | — | — |
Series 4–6 | — | — | — | 17 February 2021 [46] [47] | — |
Series 1–6 | — | 13 January 2014 [48] | 13 November 2020 [49] [lower-alpha 3] | 6 October 2021 [51] | — |
Miss Jane Marple is a fictional character in Agatha Christie's crime novels and short stories. Miss Marple lives in the village of St. Mary Mead and acts as an amateur consulting detective. Often characterized as an elderly spinster, she is one of Christie's best-known characters and has been portrayed numerous times on screen. Her first appearance was in a short story published in The Royal Magazine in December 1927, "The Tuesday Night Club", which later became the first chapter of The Thirteen Problems (1932). Her first appearance in a full-length novel was in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930, and her last appearance was in Sleeping Murder in 1976.
Agatha Christie's Poirot, or simply Poirot, is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. The ITV show is based on many of Agatha Christie's famous crime fiction series, which revolves around the fictional private investigator, Hercule Poirot. David Suchet starred as the fictional detective. Initially produced by LWT, the series was later produced by ITV Studios. The series also aired on VisionTV in Canada and on PBS and A&E in the US.
Sleeping Murder: Miss Marple's Last Case is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1976 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed for £3.50 and the US edition for $7.95.
The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, a novel by Agatha Christie, was published in the UK in 1962 and a year later in the US under the title The Mirror Crack'd. The story features amateur detective Miss Marple solving a mystery in St. Mary Mead.
Joan Bogle Hickson OBE was an English actress of theatre, film and television. She was known for her role as Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the television series Miss Marple. She also narrated a number of Miss Marple stories on audiobooks.
The Mirror Crack'd is a 1980 British mystery film directed by Guy Hamilton from a screenplay by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962). It stars Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Elizabeth Taylor. Scenes were filmed at Twickenham Film Studios in Twickenham, London, and on location in Kent.
The Murder at the Vicarage is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in October 1930 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence and the US edition at $2.00.
A Murder Is Announced is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1950 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in the same month. The UK edition sold for eight shillings and sixpence (8/6) and the US edition at $2.50.
A Caribbean Mystery is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 16 November 1964 and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at sixteen shillings (16/-) and the US edition at $4.50. It features the detective Miss Marple.
Julia Kathleen Nancy McKenzie is an English actress, singer, presenter, and theatre director. She has premièred leading roles written by both Alan Ayckbourn and Stephen Sondheim. On television, she is known for her BAFTA Award nominated role as Hester Fields in the sitcom Fresh Fields (1984–1986) and its sequel French Fields (1989–1991), and as Miss Marple in Agatha Christie's Marple (2009–2013).
John Michael Frederick Castle is an English actor. He is best known for his film and television work, most notably playing Bill in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966) and Geoffrey in The Lion in Winter (1968). Other significant credits include Man of La Mancha (1972), I, Claudius (1976) and RoboCop 3 (1993).
Miss Marple's Final Cases and Two Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club in October 1979 retailing at £4.50. It was the last Christie book to be published under the Collins Crime Club imprint although HarperCollins continue to be the writer's UK publishers.
Double Sin and Other Stories is a short story collection written by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1961 and retailed for $3.50. The collection contains eight short stories and was not published in the UK; however all of the stories were published in other UK collections.
Miss Marple, titled Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the series, is a British television series based on the Miss Marple murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie, starring Joan Hickson in the title role. It aired from 26 December 1984 to 27 December 1992 on BBC1. All twelve original Miss Marple novels by Christie were dramatised.
In Agatha Christie's mystery novels, several characters cross over different sagas, creating a fictional universe in which most of her stories are set. This article has one table to summarize the novels with characters who occur in other Christie novels; the table is titled Crossovers by Christie. There is brief mention of characters crossing over in adaptations of the novels. Her publications, both novels and short stories, are then listed by main detective, in order of publication. Some stories or novels authorised by the estate of Agatha Christie, using the characters she created, and written long after Agatha Christie died, are included in the lists.
Lists of adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie:
Sir Henry Clithering is a fictional character who appears in a series of short stories by Agatha Christie, featuring Jane Marple. The stories were first published in monthly magazines starting in 1927, and then collected into a hard-bound collection, The Thirteen Problems in 1932. Clithering also appeared in several novels featuring Miss Marple.
Raymond West is a fictional character who appears or is mentioned in several of Agatha Christie's novels and short stories featuring Jane Marple.
Miss Marple is a series of full cast BBC Radio drama adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple stories. The original series consisted of adaptations of all twelve Miss Marple novels, dramatised by Michael Bakewell and directed by Enyd Williams. They were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1993 and 2001 and starred June Whitfield as Miss Marple.