Murder Is Easy

Firstly I'm a big fan of the whodunit period drama. From Miss Marple to Poirot etc. When I saw this advertised on the BBC over the Christmas period I was hoping for a good watch.

This starts off intriguing with Miss Pinkerton boarding a train, making her way to Scotland Yard. On the train, she meets Luke Fitzwilliam, whom she tells her tale of a murderer in her village. Fitzwilliam, an investigator himself, who is frustrated at a delay in starting his new job and so goes to Miss Pinkerton's village to investigate her claims.

To be honest, I found this one a bit boring. The way it played out and was acted it almost felt like a parody of Agatha Christie rather than a serious drama.

Although David Jonsson carried the lead well enough it didn't really suit the story to have Fitzwilliam's character changed to Nigerian. It made it difficult to believe the setting where the story takes place and that it was 1950s Britain.

I would recommend spending two hours doing something better than watching this. There are much better adaptations of Agatha Christie's work than this and time would be better spent watching them. Sadly yet again another Christmas and another sub par BBC adaptation.

My wife and I were really looking forward to this, it should have been right up our street as we live this sorry of things, but it was very disappointing. Just felt very tedious, disjointed and a bit of a chore to watch. Good cast and basis of a good story but it really, really dragged.

Maybe it was the script that was the problem, and having. Also we found the excessive colours jarring, almost cartoonish. Some of the characters were just caricatures and the "reveal" felt forced. A real opportunity missed as it probably cost a lot to make. The romance felt unconvincing and some very good actors came across like they were in panto. Not recommended.

Agatha Christie wrote many dozens of murder mysteries, some famously ingenious; but either 'Murder is Easy' was a dud, or this adapatation is badly screwed up. People start dying in a small English village, but everyone still alive is remarkably unperturbed and several seem not to care if they're suspected to be the killer. Eventually, the real culprit is unearthed, and explains exactly how they've done it, although our amateur detective hero has identified the villain without in fact piecing any of it together for themselves. I've seen Christie adaptations that were fun, preposterous, or anachronistic; but none as anemic as this.

This quite village murder mystery was pitched just right. Is there a serial killer in their midst or is it just a bizarre series of accidents? Sometimes it takes an outsider to see through to the truth. The outsider being David Jonsson who is solid as the Nigerian finding his way in post war britain. What connects these victims and who has a motive for their murder. All these are answered but not before the body count is increased. This is a period Mid Sommer style of mystery. I have not read the book, but was certainly entertained by the two part drama. A solid seven. See for yourself on iPlayer before dismissing.

Agatha Christie has a chequered history with Tv and Film adaptations, from early Poirot characterisations that made him French, yes French. Margaret Rutherford was a fun but hardly faithful to the source Miss Marple. The recent ITV adaptations of Marple have played fast a loose with the narratives and even changed murderers at points. So, it's true to say that adapting Christie can be fraught with difficulty when it appears 'easy'.

This adaptation was a mess on many levels. From a sub Wes Anderson approach to texture and editing rhythm, strange close ups, wobbly camera work and a script that clanked along pouring exposition on top of the imposition of a post-colonial narrative - it just didn't mesh.

The ideas were bold, and in many ways could have been brilliant, just so many choices at once going away from the source material began to stress the story so much that it became vague and confused, an original piece about colonial attitudes in the 20th Century or a straight down the line thriller would have been much more effective and a much stronger choice from the BBC.

The problem with BBC commissions at the moment is their lack of vision to make original drama, they appear to want to be commercial whilst trying to service what is current and hotly debated. This leaves the BBC feeling confused and only concerned with issues that trend in London and liberal media outlets.

ITV have delivered Christie stronger, better and more radically than the BBC over the last two decades. So perhaps it would be nice to see this 'tradition' of a bbc Christie at Christmas knocked on the head, until they begin to understand how to produce drama that doesn't betray the source.

This was just a real dud.