Not too bad at all !
It was great to see James Fox , Joanna Lumley , David Walliams , Jamie Theakston and Tara Fitzgerald playing their parts so well . It was a very lavish & stunning piece of work - the bumbling , comic coppers take the edge off of an otherwise dark storyline . The real treat of course is Ian Richardson and one had to laugh at Miss Marple declining a lemonade and wanting a ginger wine ( plus a bit of whisky ! ) - what would Joan Hickson say !?! Miss McKewan plays the part like your favourite aunt who is unshockable and full of life . Fans of Joan Hickson might lament the lesbian twist at the end but as some of Agatha Christies novels had a gay/lesbian subtext ( like Five Little Pigs , Cards On The Table & A Murder Is Announced not to mention The Moving Finger ) you have to wonder whether or not these recent adaptations have been not so much modernisation but just a blatant depiction of what a censor aware Dame Agatha Christie could only hint at to the intelligent reader . I think being faithful to the novel by hinting is enough - it is better to let people make up their minds rather than going over the top . I know that the aim is to bring Agatha Christies stories to a modern audience but retaining the beautiful subtlety of her writing would be a great success .
But that said it is great that we are getting more Agatha Christie based TV movies and after all half a loaf is better than no bread ! This TV show is faithful enough to the original book - after all in A Pocket Full Of Rye with Joan Hickson a different person does the murder than is the case in the book . Joan Hickson fans need to be a bit less selective in their criticism of Geraldine McKewan's efforts !

Give Them An Inch...
One of the joys of a Miss Marple is the moment she castigates herself for being so terribly, terribly stupid and calls for Inch. Inch being the local taxi firm, we know she's off to the station for a train to London, and will soon be searching the records at Somerset House for proof that character X is character Y's secret spouse/parent/offspring.

The Inch ploy has been bulldozed from this adaptation and the denouement has sadly been brought in line with Arts Council box-ticking requirements.

No respect
The story is well filmed but the end is a shame, does not respect Agatha Christy, our time is not a reason to change the end with an also stupid idea. Joan Hickson stay really my preferred Miss Marple for ever.

The Body in the Library
When these new adaptations were announced, fans of the original novels were sceptical. For one thing, a very fine set of adaptations had already been produced by the BBC during the eighties, making Joan Hickson the definitive Miss Marple. Not only that, but ITV apparently planned to make changes to the settings and characters, in order to bring the stories up to date.

Later installments have, admittedly, borne this out somewhat, but in this first installment, there isn't very much to worry about. As with the recent revamped Poirot series, a reimagining proves to be exactly what these novels need - while the latest outings for David Suchet's bouffant Belgian exploited the darker aspects of Christie's novels however, these new versions of the St Mary Mead-set Marple novels have done exactly the opposite, exploiting the capacity for humour in the source material. The result is a series which should manage to please both the die-hard Christie fans eager for faithful small-screen actualisations of their favourite books, and a more casual audience weary of po-faced detective adaptations - giving the former sumptuous period detail and a respect for the intricacies of the novels' plots, and providing the latter with a welcome dose of comic relief, without ever insulting the intelligence of either. It's a style Christie herself utilised splendidly in early thrillers such as The Seven Dials Mystery and her ongoing series of mysteries featuring husband and wife team, Tommy & Tuppence.

The tale begins with the discovery of the body of a platinum blonde in a party dress in the library of Gossington Hall, home of Dolly and Colonel Bantry. Dolly turns to her friend, Jane Marple, in the hope that she can solve the mystery and avoid a scandal.

Geraldine McEwan's Miss Marple is a delightful cross between Hickson's frail but sharp old lady and Margaret Rutherford's dotty maiden aunt, retaining the vivacity of the latter and the surprising penatrativenss of the former. Larger-than-life support is provided by Simon Callow as Colonel Melchett and a fabulously camp Johanna Lummley as Dolly.

It is a common misconception that Mrs Christie's novels are cliched. They aren't - they've simply become so. When they were written, back in the day, they were very original - even sophisticated at times (A Murder is Announced, the fourth in this series of adaptations, contains a subtle, yet, for its time, beautifully unashamed depiction of an elderly lesbian couple which even thoroughly modern authors like Sarah Waters would be proud of). Nevertheless, in the twenty-first century, an endless stream of inferior imitations and adaptations have bred contempt for these ingenious tales, making what was once original and suspensful appear cliched and mundane.

Kevin Elyot's masterful adaptation tackles this problem admirably. Wearing its ostentatiousness proudly on its sleeves like diamond-encrusted cuff-links, Elyot's script charges through the story, aided by some astute direction, gleefully drawing attention to each and every murder mystery cliché and revelling in it. When one of the characters explains, in a voice-over, for instance, that "Mr Jefferson insisted they call the police at once", the accompanying clip is of the said Mr Jefferson banging on a door, loudly proclaiming, "I insist you call the police at once!"

Admittedly, the slight change to the solution, in order to facilitate a love affair between two female killers as opposed to one between two heterosexual conspiritors was an odd one - but it fitted perfectly with the hilariously OTT tone of the whole, and it didn't actually change the plot very much at all. Besides which, it hepled make Miss Marple more demonstrably the surprisingly worldly figure she is often descirbed as being in the books. It also provided a nice hint of a tragic love affair in Miss Marple's past, adding a touch of sadness to the camp veneer (it's no wonder the chatracter is adored by gay people).

To achieve an adaptation that fits marvellously into the self-mocking postmodernism of the most successful elements of contemporary culture whilst simultaneously remaining so completely true to the original 1940's source seems impossible - yet that is exactly what Elyot's script manages to do. This is refreshing, quality television - and a wonderful adaptation to boot.

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