television
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Stylish Television – Death And Other Details
I love a good murder mystery. And when the mystery is a string of murders, taking place on the most beautiful, Art Deco cruise liner (based on the Normandie maybe?), then I am totally sold. Add a beautiful, glamorous cast, a fiesty heroine, and a brilliant tongue in cheek performance from Mandy Patinkin, who I totally loved as Sol in Homeland, and you have the unmissable ‘Death and other Details’ something that has filled my ‘Only murders in the building’ gap this early Spring. The premise of Death and Other Details is initially quite simple. A cruise ship that is packed with specially invited guests is the scene of the…
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Stylish Television: And Then There Were None
‘And then there were none’ is one of Agatha Christie’s most famous books, one that is often voted her very best story, and it was the first of the recent BBC TV adaptations when it came to the screen in 2015. It’s stage version is currently touring the UK, and I am very excited about going to see it in Birmingham on Wednesday (I saw a previous version a few years ago and you can read that review here.) As a precursor to this, I have just re-watched the BBC version, which is now available on i player. There have been many versions of And then there were none, including…
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Stylish television: Witness For The Prosecution
When I posted about Ordeal by Innocence last week, I was asked if I had ever watched the BBC version of ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ that was on the television at Christmas 2016. This prompted me to rewatch this, as all the BBC Agatha Christie adaptations are now on the iplayer, and I was once again struck by just how brilliant Agatha was as a writer, and also by how dark and different this adaptation is to the much loved 1957, Billy Wilder film. Witness for the Prosecution was originally an Agatha Christie short story, one which was then turned into a play. The BBC adaptation goes back to the…
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Stylish Television: Ordeal By Innocence
Ordeal by Innocence* is a 2018, BBC adaptation* of one of the best standalone novels by Agatha Christie. It had previously been adapted as a part of the Marple series, with Miss Marple added into the mix to solve the crime, but although the new version was truer in that there was no detective, it completely changed the ending and the identity of the killer, garnering mixed reviews for this reason. Now you can watch it again as it has been re-released on BBC IPlayer, so, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, I dived in. Ordeal by Innocence is one of the darkest of all Agatha Christie novels, and tells…
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Stylish Television: Murder is Easy (2023)
Christmas has always been a great time for Agatha Christie fans. In the past it was the time of the annual ‘Christie for Christmas’ when a new book would be released to coincide with the festive season. Now, it is often the time for a new dramatisation, or the always welcomed showings of the adaptations of the past. Already, this Christmas has seen showings of Peter Ustinov’s ‘Death on the Nile‘ and ‘Evil under the Sun‘, along with Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple in ‘The Mirror Crackd‘ and the sublime ‘Witness for the Prosecution‘. There has also been the repeat of Lucy Worsley’s superb 3 part documentary about the author.…
