Miss Marple

Elderly spinster Miss Jane Marple sees everything through the prism of village life, her idyllic village of St. Mary Mead. Miss Marple uses her powers of observation and common sense to solve all manner of murders.

I like that there is actually at last an IMDb page for the show as a whole series, and a chance to comment on the show in its entirety.

For me, this is the best of The Agatha Christie adaptations, it is quite literally a perfect series. No wonder the show is still adored the whole world over, and repeated on a regular basis.

Every single adaptation offers the viewer the chance to escape into a world of village life, gossip, hidden passions and murder.

A golden series, but for me the highlights are definitely Nemesis and A Murder is Announced, two incredible pieces of television, they hold up incredibly well forty years on.

Beautifully produced, amazingly well written, visually terrific, but best of all, the presence of the iconic Miss Marple, Joan Hickson, who has never been, nor will be battered in the role, her performances throughout are sublime, the perfect Miss Marple.

Just a quick note, if you adore the series, and have contemplated acquiring it on Blu ray, I would advise it, the colours are incredible, it looks so sharp, and there are a couple of extra scenes.

I could watch them over and over, and do, as I said earlier, it's one of the best British shows of all time.

10/10.

A series of murder mysteries, based on the famous Agatha Christie novels. In the quiet English village of St Mary Mead lives an elderly lady, Miss Jane Marple. Beneath the unassuming exterior lies a razor-sharp, deductive mind, a mind perfect for solving murders. And that's what she does, incredibly well.

Great series, the definitive Miss Marple series. Very intriguing mysteries, as one would expect considering the writer. Joan Hickson is perfect as Miss Marple, imbuing Miss Marple with quaintness, fade-into-the-background anonymity and incredible intellect.

The settings are generally great too, capturing the quaintness and peacefulness of the English countryside and English life after WW2.

Another telling factor is how well developed and colourful the secondary characters are. Miss Marple's character is not enough to carry the show and the secondary characters help the engagement levels enormously.

Not perfect though. The first few mysteries are brilliant, for the reasons described above. However, from Sleeping Murder onwards the secondary characters ae less engaging and the settings less idyllic. The mysteries are still quite intriguing though.

Aside from "Poirot", "Miss Marple" (1984) is my favorite Agatha Christie series. It's very well crafted, sticks reasonably close to the Christie stories and Joan Hickson is excellent in the lead. She is good because she is a minimalist type Miss Marple...mostly listening and getting other people to talk. I also think it's significntly better than the more recent Miss Marple series...for many of the reasons I mentioned above. Even a relatively poor episode of this series is very well done and is well worth seeing and faithful to the spirit of the stories. Well made and I have no complaints...and I usually like to complain!