Miss Marple

2 hour TV Series

Miss Marple, the spinster detective who is one of the most famous characters created by English crime writer Agatha Christie, has been portrayed by a variety of actresses in films and television. In the cinema, Margaret Rutherford portrayed a rumbustious Miss Marple in the 1960s and Angela Lansbury contributed a performance in The Mirror Crack'd before moving on to a similar role in the U.S. television series, Murder She Wrote. In Britain, however, certainly the most famous Miss Marple has been Joan Hickson who starred in a dozen television mysteries over the course of a decade.

In a departure from more typical detective narratives, at the denouements, Miss Marple is never involved in any physical chase or fight. Although she solves the mystery--through observation, a few polite questions and a bit of knitting--Miss Marple has very little physical impact on the progress of the narrative. She is often peripheral rather than central. In some stories, female aides act as her physical stand-ins: but at the denouement of the stories, when television narrative convention demands some crisis and excitement, Miss Marple herself is little involved. Although she may engineer a denouement, as in "4:50 From Paddington", she is not involved in the chase that follows. Rather, it is policemen and good male characters who become involved in car chases and leaps through glass windows.

The particular pleasures of this very British television production ensure it retains its appeal even when new programs are no longer being produced and its wide circulation, through syndication on several continents, attests to its continuing popularity.