Trailer for Parteners in Crime BBC series


What do people think with this first look?

Comments

  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    It looks good, Can't Wait.
  • MarcWatson-GrayMarcWatson-Gray Dundee City, United Kingdom
    I agree...It looks great.............i haven't read any Tommy and Tuppence stories for some time now,so maybe it helps not having a fixed idea of how they should look,but yes,promising.Will need to try and read the two books to be featured before they are screened to guage the t.v. episodes fully....
  • I hope they are able to film the last two novels as well, but Postern of Fate should be rewritten because of all the repetitive language in the book.
  • 3rdGirl3rdGirl New South Wales, Australia
    I hope it's good. They are my least favorite AC characters.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

    The Interview in My Magazine says that Matthew Pritchard said if the series is successful perhaps they could do something with the Miss Marple stories, The Interview says the series is set in the 50s as The 20s would seem remote, so The BBC assuming people are stupid and not able to grasp things again, Oh Dear :-(


  • I agree, Tommy. Absurd logic. WW II has happened in the intervening years, and the world order is different. The position in society of the gentry to whom T and T belong is different. What unnecessary problems the directors are giving themselves. Audiences seem to have got their poor little heads around fin du ciecle and post WWI Downton Abbey, so why not T and T in the proper era?
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I have just tweeted David Walliams asking if the BBBC are saying the viewers are too stupid to understand the Time Line ad asking by being Tommy in the series isn't he agreeing with the BBC, I will tell you if I get a reply.
  • I wonder whether you will. I wonder if David Walliams is really attracted to Agatha Christie and thinking of identifying himself with successive ventures such as a new Marple. Have a look down a list of Miss Marple stories and see if there is one which hasn't been done for a few years, which isn't frequently repeated, and which could do with a re-try. Maybe A Carribean Mystery - and as, on this forum, most people seem to dislike At Bertram,s Hotel, that one with a thoughtful interpretation to improve upon the book.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    The Interview says he became a Fan when he was 10 and  saw the Finney Film then he said he met Matthew Pritchard when he was in BBCs Body In The Library and then  again after he read the Beresford books, All The Miss Marple Novels have been done by ITV as welll as the Beeb but the only Short Stories to be done  which were done by ITV are The Blue Geranium and Greenshawes Folly (Oh and another short story was mingled into it), Endless Night which was re-worked from The Curious Case Of The Caretaker was done 
  • I think Sparkling Cyanide could be done well if the hero were to be acted very splendidly. The identity of the killer and his accomplice is really very good in the novel. Jolly difficult to guess, but good clues in the psychology. The insight into the killer's modus operandi on the charm front is spot on, and exceptionally well-explained in the dialogue and narrative by AC. Somehow the secondary characters don't come to life in the novel, but a good adaptation could do wonders. Not a criticism as such of AC, but she does have it in for beautiful women who she tries to put acros trade on their looks, and she is keen to portray them as vacuous, and to have the men getting tired of them. She is striking a blow, in her novels for the plain woman with character and brains. Sparkling Cyanide is a case in point, Megan over ElsIe Holland in The Moving Finger, Rosemary over Arlene in Evil Under the Sun. The sensible women with character always have hair which fits their heads, and fine hands - maybe Agatha Christie herself was more the characterful type. Jane Austen had a similar philosophy and wrote her novels to favour the clever, sensible type with intelligent eyes, over the Archetypal attractive, seductive female who she lived, as in Mansfield Park, to come a cropper.
  • MarcWatson-GrayMarcWatson-Gray Dundee City, United Kingdom
    As most of you have noted. I think T.V.producers (Not just B.B.C.)appear to have a a"cut off" point in that anything set before 1940 becomes a Period Drama and therefore cannot be shown as a fast paced,exciting murder mystery.Granada's Sherlock Holmes didn't (Please correct me if I'm wrong)capture as wide a range of viewers that say, Marple has,as it was maybe seen as to "Period"
    As the song says "It's all about the money"
    And I may be doing some actors a disservice but,how many of them would argue with producers with regards to correct time settings and plot changes etc when being offered a show that would be given (I assume ) a prime time slot and therefore maximum exposure....All that said....still looking forward to it ......
  • AnubisAnubis Ontario, Canada
    I should think that of necessity, adaptations must be somewhat procrustean in nature. T 'n' T's written adventures extend from 1920 to the 1970s, and, unlike Monsieur P and Miss M, they age with time. Now, suppose you are a producer who wants to adapt all of their adventures for the small screen, and let's say there are 6 episodes to do. Given that you do have a finite budget, plus a thousand other considerations that a writer can ignore, ranging from appropriate wardrobe to motor vehicles to auditions to schedules, what would you do: film 6 episodes with 6 different sets of actors in 6 different time periods, with an incremental increase in the attendant dangers of anachronisms? Or film 6 episodes with the same set of actors in the same time period and finagle the extraneous details? After all, the plots would be essentially the same. I expect most correspondents on this web site would choose the first option, but I think most producers would choose the second, and I wouldn't chastise them for that.
    P.S. I don't know whether the Granada Holmes was more popular than Miss Marple, but I know I watched both series eagerly when broadcast here in Canada.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I am probably the only person who liked The Updated version of Sparkling Cyanide, making Pauline Collins and Oliver Ford Davies T&T-type Characters was an Ingenious Idea, perhaps if The T&T Series is successful they should do that book.
  • Definitely, Tommy. David Walliams would be ok as that slightly quirky hero. Sheridan Smith as Rosemary's sister. Actually, just had a thought. They should get Caroline Flack to act in some of the Christie adaptations because she has that jolly hockey sticks sort of confidence and social breeziness which, as I think you noted, Tommy, Jessica Raine doesn't possess.
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    Thinking about it Griselda Jessica Raine can do the Jolly Hockeysticks thing but it might be tinged with a bit of pain behind the eyes, like Jenny Aggatter's Character in Call The Midwives
  • Tommy_A_JonesTommy_A_Jones Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
    I meant to finish by saying Jessica Raine's sought of Jolly Hockystick's isn't what is needed for Tuppence.
  • Griselda, I think it is more a Cinderella theme - the less favoured woman who wins the socially desirable man. Arlene is not only stupid but vicious (in her treatment of Linda) and Rosemary is both smart and kind (and she is certainly attractive). Megan is a total missfit (and personally, I agree with the Hero's sister that her main attraction is the compassion the hero feels for her) And Elsa doesn't trade on her looks - she is the cause of the murder, but certainly an innocent cause, and ends by finding another professional job, and sending Megan a nice wedding present - certainly not a tramp. Another Cinderella type is Heather in Ordeal by Innocence - again a misfit, trying and failing to define herself, and finally daring to ask for her man and her happiness. 

  • Yes, Tali, I think this is very much as AC would have viewed the characters, as you describe. I agree that Elsie doesn't trade on her looks, but I can't help feeling that AC, like Jane Austen, gains a certain unconscious satisfaction from presenting a woman blessed I'm the looks department as being a bit wanting, or a let down. I could be letting my imagination run away with me, but I sense a certain tame and harmless malice behind having, Elsie, this Greek goddess, open her mouth to speak, and ruin the poetry of her being. But, then again, these sentiments are voiced by Jerry, not by AC herself,so maybe AC is throwing illumination on relationships between the sexes more than letting her own views show through. It is interesting that in Evil Under the Sun, AC has Poirot say that only brains or goodness can hold a man's attention, and that beautiful women rule a kingdom which is of the instantaneous moment only, and their charms have no lasting appeal. Which female character does AC feel most affection for, do you think, Tali?
  • I'm not sure about affection, but I think she has most admiration for two types - Rosamond in EUTS - the efficient, successful but simple (i.e. not showy) kind and essentially british county type, (See also Henrietta in The Hollow) and the perfect innocent young girl - Miranda in Halloween Party - a kind of untouched innocent who yet has timeless wisdom, and to a certain extent Julia in Cat among the Pigeons. But I suspect that your first analysis is close to the truth, in that AC had a sympathy for 'underdog' young women - women who did not have the conventional graces, and were neither sexy nor manipulative, like Megan and Heather. My top-favourite of these women (and the one I felt was portrayed most sympathetically and realistically) is Midge in "The Hollow", and the scene where she finally wins her man for keeps is my favourite love-scene. 
    About Elsa - you are right, she is portrayed as rather bland and boring once you get past her looks, and the comparison to Jane Austen is valid - look at the beautiful but boring Jane and the Witty Elizabeth in "Pride and Prejudice"! 

  • Yes, the scenes with Midge are wonderful, and really enhance the story. I would love to see another dramatisation of this mystery, with plenty of time given to showing the characters of the family members, and sensitive handling of Midge's romance.
  • I'm with you on that!
Sign In or Register to comment.