REVIEW: Marple The Blue Geranium (S5.E3)

ITV

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW
Julia McKenzie stars as Miss Marple in the first film to be adapted from a short story, this one based on the short story of the same name published in the Thirteen Problems (1930). It was adapted by Stewart Harcourt and directed by David Moore and was first broadcast on 29th December 2010.

Story

Miss Marple comes forward with new information that could save an innocent man from the gallows, but as nobody will listen to her, she must rely on her old friend Sir Henry Clithering, who was the commissioner of Scotland Yard some years ago. The information concerns the 'blue geranium' murder case that happened six months ago whilst Jane was visiting friends in the picturesque village of Little Ambrose. But will her evidence save George Pritchard in time?

As the source text was a short story with few characters and not very detailed, but the program still had to last the usual length of 90 minutes, Stewart Harcourt clearly had to embellish the plot a bit, adding characters and adding red herrings to liven it all up. He keeps the base characters of George and Mary Pritchard and Nurse Copling, but gives George a brother Lewis and Mary a sister called Phillipa who are married. This doesn't make any difference to the plot at all, except we have more motives and suspects. More characters are added such as Hazel, Rev Dermot, Dr Frane and Eddie Seward. Eddie Seward is the first to die, adding more deaths and more action to the plot but his death isn't linked: he committed suicide.

One important point is that it's all told from Miss Marple's perspective as she recalls the murder to Sir Henry, very much in the style of the Thirteen Problems. Although it's a shame that there wasn't the whole Tuesday Night Club set up, which could have had Dolly Bantry and Raymond in it, it's more interesting to have Miss Marple trying to save George Pritchard from the gallows. It's a very good script and proves to us that a short story can be filmed for a hour and a half TV film.

Copyright ITV

Direction, locations, soundtrack

David Moore's direction is quite dark in some areas, particularly the whole supernatural elements in the opening scenes. He also makes use of the village location, but I would have liked to see the courtroom scenes a bit darker in tone. Hatfield House is again used, this time as the interior for Sir Henry's club. The theme 'Eddie Seward' can be found on YouTube.

Just as a little connection, I noticed in Mary Pritchard's room, as the camera scans over her desk, there are a collection of Ariadne Oliver books, which proves that Marple and Poirot exist in the same universe in the TV series.

Characters and cast

It's nice to see the story told in first person from Miss Marple's perspective, and Julia McKenzie gives us her usual amazing performance as the sleuth, particularly in the courtroom scenes. I liked the relationship between her and Sir Henry Clithering, and the format worked well although I thought they could have included Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry, who could also be listening to Miss Marple's story. I love the relationship between Marple and Kevin McNally's character DI Somerset, who she uncovers to be a hopeless alcoholic but they warm to each other slightly at the end, but never really.

Of the guest cast, they all bring their A game as usual, but Donald Sinden was great as Sir Henry, Toby Stevens was excellent as George Pritchard, as was Sharon Small.