Marple Season 7 Preview (US)

©ITV - Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple and Wendy Craig as Marjorie Philpott

Julia McKenzie returns as Miss Jane Marple for her final series of films based on the novels by Agatha Christie. 

Fans of Agatha Christie in the US will be excited to hear that Marple Season 7 will be broadcast on PBS from Sunday 21st to 28th September. Julia McKenzie returns to the role of the inquisitive Miss Marple in her final three films. The first two, A Caribbean Mystery and Greenshaw's Folly, will be broadcast on Sunday 21st and the third, Endless Night, will be shown the following week. Joined by a whole host of stars including Antony Sher, Oliver Ford Davies, Fiona Shaw, Joanna David, Tom Hughes and Tamzin Outhwaite, Julia McKenzie takes Miss Marple on a dark trip from the Caribbean beaches to the sinister villages of the seemingly quiet English countryside.

A Caribbean Mystery  

A Caribbean Mystery finds Miss Marple (Julia McKenzie) far from St Mary Mead in a lavish hotel on the tropical island of St. Honore. However, the Golden Palms resort proves itself to be far from the heavenly retreat it first seemed, when fellow guest Major Palgrave (Oliver Ford Davies) dies shortly after his arrival, following an evening of exotic food, Planter’s Punch, and a specially arranged “Voodoo show”. 

 

Miss Marple alone is unconvinced by the “official” verdict that Palgrave died from a heart attack, and recruits the curmudgeonly business tycoon, Jason Rafiel (Antony Sher), to be her reluctant sidekick. Together they unpick a web of deceit and “dark magic”.

 

Despite Miss Marple’s conviction that another murder is imminent, the local police chief, Inspector Daventry (Anele Matoti), stubbornly refuses to take this sweet-natured spinster seriously.  That is until the brutal deaths of a hotel maid and a second guest. 

 

Suddenly every one of the hotel’s intriguing guests and its owners, Tim (Robert Webb) and Molly Kendall (Charity Wakefield), becomes a suspect, and it is left to Agatha Christie's iconic detective to unravel the truth, and apprehend this paradise island’s dangerous killer.

©ITV - Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple with the cast of 'A Caribbean Mystery'

Cast list:

 

Julia McKenzie - Miss Marple

Robert Webb - Tim Kendall

Charity Wakefield - Molly 

Sir Antony Sher - Mr Rafiel 

Daniel Rigby - Canon Prescott

Warren Brown - Jackson

Montserrat Lombard - Esther Walters

Alastair Mackenzie - Colonel Edward Hillingdon 

Pippa Bennett Warner - Victoria

Charles Mesure - Greg Dyson

Kingsley Ben-Adir - Errol

Hermione Norris - Evelyn Hillingdon

Joe Vaz - Sergeant Weston

Anele Matoti - Inspector Daventry

MyAnna Buring - Lucky Dyson 

Oliver Ford Davies - Major Palgrave

Andrea Dondolo - Mama Zogbe

Jeremy Crutchley - Ian Fleming

Charlie Higson - James Bond

 

Greenshaw's Folly 

 

When Louisa Oxley (Kimberley Nixon), an old family friend, visits Miss Marple on the run one stormy night, our amateur sleuth knows she must help both Louisa and her young son Archie (Bobby Smalldridge) by finding them refuge at the nearby Greenshaw's Folly.

 

Miss Marple secures Louisa a secretarial position at the Folly, a shambolic country pile of her dear friend, the eccentric botanist, Miss Greenshaw (Fiona Shaw), the last in a long family line. However, despite Louisa quickly finding herself with two admirers in the form of gardener Alfred Pollock (Martin Compston) and actor Nat Fletcher (Sam Reid) it soon becomes clear that the labyrinthine Folly isn't quite the safe house Miss Marple had hoped for. 

 

Death soon begins to cast its dark and sinister shadow, firstly over Walter Cracken (Jim Moir), the Folly’s loyal butler, whose demise appears to be an accident after one wee dram too many.

 

But worldly-wise Miss Marple is far less convinced than the brusque Inspector Welch (John Gordon Sinclair). And then when Folly guest Horace Bindler (Rufus Jones) goes missing, a dangerous storm seems to be gathering finally bursting to dramatic effect with the gruesome murder of Miss Greenshaw herself.

 

All are suspects, but none can imagine the secrets, both past and present, which Miss Marple is about to unravel.

 

©ITV - Miss Marple enjoying her Caribbean holiday

 

Cast list:

 

Julia McKenzie - Miss Marple

Kimberley Nixon - Louisa Oxley

Julia Sawalha - Mrs Cresswell

Martin Compston - Alfred Pollock

Sam Reid - Nat Fletcher

John Gordon Sinclair - Inspector Welch

Matt Jay - Willis Cayley

Robert Glenister - Father Brophy

Judy Parfitt - Cicely Beauclerk

Fiona Shaw - Miss Greenshaw

Rufus Jones - Horace Bindler

Jim Moir - Walter Cracken

Oscar Pearce - Philip Oxley

Candida Gubbins - Minnie Tulliver

Joanna David - Grace Ritchie

Bobby Smalldridge - Archie Oxley

 

Endless Night will be broadcast in the US on Sunday 28th September