Miss Marple:  A Murder Is Announced **** (1985, Joan Hickson, Ursula Howells, Samantha Bond, Sylvia Syms, Joan Sims) – Classic Movie Review 9,616

The when and where of a murder are announced in the Chipping Cleghorn Gazette. The 1985 three-episode TV mini-series A Murder Is Announced stars the redoubtable Joan Hickson in her third case as the BBC’s Miss Marple. 

Director David Giles’s 1985 BBC three-episode TV mini-series Miss Marple:  A Murder Is Announced stars the redoubtable Joan Hickson, who takes on her third case as the BBC’s Miss Marple, based on the novel by Agatha Christie, after the when and where of a murder are announced in the Chipping Cleghorn Gazette.

People assume that it is a bad joke. But at the appointed hour at the appointed place at the home of Miss Blacklock (Ursula Howells), the lights are extinguished, a man enters with a torch and a gun is fired.

Miss Marple:  A Murder Is Announced is a plush and satisfying version of the complex Christie mystery, with the acting, production, music and period sense all first class.

Among the splendid cast of formidable ladies, Joan Sims is especially welcome as Miss Murgatroyd, but then so are Ursula Howells, Renée Asherson as Miss Bunner, Sylvia Syms as Mrs Easterbrook, and Joyce Carey as Belle Goedler.

Alan Plater’s adaptation is by and large faithful, although Mitzi is renamed Hannah and is said to be Swiss (whereas in the book her nationality is not known) and the vicarage cat is female and called Delilah but in the novel the cat was male and called Tiglath Pileser.

It premiered in three parts on 28 February, 1 March and 2 March 1985 on BBC1.

It follows The Body in the Library and The Moving Finger.

It is followed by Miss Marple: A Pocketful of Rye, directed by Guy Slater, in 1985.

Also in the cast are Samantha Bond, Mary Kerridge, Ralph Michael, John Castle as Detective Inspector Craddock, Paola Dionosotti, Kevin Whatley as Detective Sergeant Fletcher, Richard Bebb, Vivienne Moore, Tim Carrington, David Collings, Liz Crowther, Matthew Solon, Simon Shepherd, Nicola King, Elaine Ives-Cameron, and Vivienne Moore.

It was remade in 2005 as part of the first season of the ITV series Agatha Christie’s Marple with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, and most of the characters altered.

Miss Marple:  A Murder Is Announced is written by David Giles, runs 154 minutes, is made and released by BBC, is written by Alan Plater, is shot by Peter Hall, is produced by Guy Slater, and is scored by Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard.

The dust jacket of the first UK edition.

A Murder Is Announced was first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in June 1950 and cost eight shillings and sixpence (8/6). It was promoted as Christie’s 50th book, though that is counting both UK and US short story collections. The story was previously explored in Christie’s Miss Marple short story The Companion.

Leslie Darbon adapted the novel into a stage play in 1977 at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, and then at the Vaudeville Theatre, London. It was presented by Peter Saunders, who brought Christie’s The Mousetrap to the stage.

Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple starring Joan Hickson aired from 26 December 1984 to 27 December 1992 on BBC1. All 12 original Miss Marple Christie novels were filmed.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,616

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