Le cheval pâle d'Agatha Christie

Once again Phelps thinks she knows better than Dame Agatha Christie, if she feels the need to re-write her plots just remove Christie's name from the title. As others have said it's creepy and attractive to look at, but go past the visuals and you'll find pretty poor story telling. I had expected Death comes as the end to be the next production, that would have been interesting as it has never been made for television. This is one of Christie's later books, it has a chilling core, I fear that in each of the Television adaptations, that grit has been missed. It's better than the dreadful mash up of The ABC Murders from last year.

Butcher job on Agatha Christie story and a lackluster cast make this nearly unwatchable. The period detail also seems wrong with all that late 1960s clothes and hair.

Rufus Sewell and Rita Tushingham are the only recognizable stars in this mess. Most of the others should have stayed in acting classes a little longer. Especially awful is the woman paying Hermia.

Casting is suspect also in having Sewell married to a Black woman in 1960 London, let along a Black witch living with two white women in Much Deeping.

The whole witchy woman thing vs the usual Christie poisoning plot turns into a total muddle and makes the un-Christie ending really stupid. Oh yes, and cut the F bombs. They added absolutely nothing to the proceedings.

I did, however, like the car Sewell drives.

This Sarah Phelps (am not British and know nothing of her work) seems to have aroused passionate criticism for her seemingly wholesale changes to the revered Agatha Christie's work. If the accusations are correct and further reading seems to make that a fact then it seems rather pointless in even describing The Pale Horse (the TV serialisation) as based on Christie's novel. At no stage did this production feel like a Christie who-dunnit. The so-called three witches felt completely contrived from start to finish. And the ending? Well, there will be no use of spoilers here because this Phelps' yarn has none. Take your pick from a few guesses! I fully agree with one review here which suggested the Christie estate should take legal proceedings against Sarah Phelps whose butchering of plot and character make this the worst Christie adaptation ever produced. So disgusting that a rating is inappropriate.

There seems to be a need these days to take classic works by the likes of Bram Stoker and in this instance, Agatha Christie and re-write them. Or to put it another way, in my opinion, "stuff them up".

For me, the maxim "if it ain't broke don't fix it" applies and The Pale Horse is no exception. To start with you have a male hero, who can't be a hero, without first being a villain. The original hero of the piece is re-written as a scoundrel and a womaniser. Why this is the case I can only guess at but its a lame ploy.

The rest of the story fares little better, skewing the tale away from an intriguing murder mystery, towards a rather jaded tale of sexual infidelity and secrets.

On the plus side the acting is decent and the visuals are creepily eerie. That said, once again, the price of tinkering with something that works just fine is an off balance tale, that fails to resonate.

5/10.

I was really enjoying this until the very end. I didn't understand the ending and even reading the BBC's dissection on what it all meant left me none the wiser. I feel as if I wasted valuable TV time :-(