Normally, I’m a stickler for accuracy and I don’t approve of screenwriters taking too many liberties with the original text, especially if they’re messing with a master like Dame Agatha. But in the case of “The Pale Horse,” I was willing to go along for the ride and I suggest you do, too. Miss Marple is fun, and this mystery—even with its added characters and plot changes—is a goody. Twisty, campy, and it has witches!
And the costume Holly Willoughby wears in her brief appearance as Goody Carne makes me think that her casting is something of an in-joke. (She is normally the effervescent hostess of Dancing on Ice and This Morning.) She seems tickled to be part of the production, and even if I don’t know who she is, I think I can guess why she’s famous.
Every episode of Miss Marple (and Poirot, and Inspector Lewis and just about anything you’ll see on Masterpiece Mystery) is a great big game of “Where have we seen him/her before?”. The faces are so very familiar from British TV series and films—especially other TV mysteries—that it feels like a visit with old friends. This is delightfully different from the special guest star syndrome that plagues American episodic TV, because in Miss Marple everyone’s a special guest star and everyone’s in the frame.
“The Pale Horse” brought with it two familiar faces (well, familiar to me at any rate) that I never tire of seeing: Bill Paterson and Susan Lynch.
One of the things I love about the Miss Marple mysteries is the fact that they seem to be such a guilty pleasure for actors. No one’s too big, important or “serious” an actor to have a go at portraying a suspect or even a victim; the man who’s coshed on the head early on is Nicholas Parsons OBE.
It’s not clear whether we’ll be seeing fresh Miss Marple mysteries anytime soon. It’s also not clear (or maybe this is just me) why the powers that be chose to rewrite The Pale Horse as a Miss Marple mystery when there are other genuine Miss Marple mysteries waiting to be dramatized. Right now I’m reading The Tuesday Club Murders, aka The Thirteen Problems, a collection of thirteen short stories that would make wonderful Miss Marple TV mysteries. (One of them, The Blue Geranium, already has.)
The stories, short as they might be, are perfect reminders that no one solves a crime like Miss Marple. Here’s hoping the series continues, it’s too much fun to stop now.
Leslie Gilbert Elman blogs intermittently at My Life in Laundry. She’s written two trivia books and has a few unpublished fiction manuscripts in the closet to keep the skeletons company.
I DVR’d this and hope to get to see it soon. Thanks for letting me know I am not crazy and that Miss M was not in the Pale Horse. I’d done a blog post on the Blue Geranium elsewhere and was delighted to see the story (redone as it was) on Masterpiece.
@Terrie Nope, you’re not crazy, and I think you’ll like The Pale Horse.
I really liked The Blue Geranium on Masterpiece and I think there are lots of opportunities for more Miss Marple episodes to be found in The Tuesday Club Murders. Producers, are you listening?
Speaking of “where have I seen him before” the gentleman playing Mr. Venables drove me nuts trying to place him. I was delighted to discover (via a frenzied post-show Googling) that it’s Neil from the Young Ones, a much loved character from my childhood.
@sonipitts Gosh yes! (And aren’t you digging deep!) Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden from “The Goodies” have done Miss Marple episodes as well.
Recognizing people from show to show is one of the best things about British shows! Besides the quality :).
Agreed!