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Christie TV adaptations

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 10 months ago

Nick Hay on the Geraldine McEwan Miss Marple TV series

 

I will defend the McEwans as no-one else is. I have now seen 8 of the adaptations and there are four more due - Towards Zero, Nemesis, Bertrams and Ordeal by Innocence. Two of these are of course not originally Marples and in one case (Ordeal) I have not read the original - so it will be an amazing treat to watch a Christie where I have not read the book! (actually I see there was a previous film in 1984 with Donald Sutherland - I wonder if anyone here has seen that?). Towards Zero has already been released in Canada according to imdb - again wonder if anyone has seen it?

 

Of those I have seen but are not discussed below The Sittaford Mystery was of course a radical departure from the book (well Miss M's presence for one thing). This was probably a good thing as it is one of her weakest books IMO ( the solution depends on the kind of trick which I really dislike- indeed I wonder if Christie was parodying someone or at least trying something very different to her normal books?). There is no way you could make the original book work on screen. Having said that this adaptation did not really work either, despite the usual casting pleasures. The absence of a strong plotline seemed fatal.

 

Anyway here are my comments on the second series. It should be noted that there are SPOILERS in respect of Sleeping Murder.

 

It seems to me that there are three primary ways of viewing these adaptations...

 

1.) In relation to the books. 2.) In relation to the Hicksons. 3.) As television films in their own right.

 

It will be noted that (2) forms a distinct problem which many book adaptations do not have (although some do - for instance the recent Pride and Prejudice). I do not think that it applies, for instance, to Suchet except in the cases of Orient Express, Nile and arguably Evil under the Sun (the other Ustinov's were so execrable that they could be ignored). But all the Hicksons were formidable, serious adaptations, whatever reservations may be made.

 

If we turn to (1) there are of course two approaches. One is that of those who may be termed the fundamentalists, for whom any adaptation is judged solely in terms of its loyalty in exact reproduction of the plot. I will be polite and say that I do not find this approach very interesting or rewarding. On a practical level it would seem to me self-evident that any adaptation which did work in this way (if it were ever possible) would be doomed to fail in terms of (3). But beyond this it seems to me pointless - why adapt to another medium at all? Why not just read the book? In any case anyone who is of this persuasion is strongly advised to completely avoid theMcEwans! (It should be noted that not all the Hicksons are faithful - Nemesis in particular springs to mind).

 

The second approach here is much looser and harder to define. How does the adaptation enrich our reading? What does it emphasise? How does it distort? What do the emphases and distortions tell us? What are the film-makers trying to achieve?

 

My own feeling is that the McEwans have been so defined in relation to the Hicksons - to put clear blue water between themselves and the Hicksons - that in fact they rarely enrich our reading. The strategy adopted has been to make the stories into Romantic Comedies. Thus we have a succession of comedians - Dawn French, Harry Enfield, Josie Lawrence or actors doing comic turns. The ending of each episode has been 'romantic' in one way or another. The emphasis has been on the comic, the nostalgic, the quirky - in fact the adaptations have drawn less on Christie or the Hicksons than on the wildly successful Midsomer Murders series - which have been shown in exactly the same most lucrative of prime-time slots on Sunday nights.

 

The extent to which this approach becomes a problem depends to some extent on the book being adapted. Because, as Barnard has pointed out (in A Talent to Deceive), Marple is not a static character - although I disagree strongly with his conclusions about how she changed. But another reason that it is a problem is that it feeds into certain Christie myths - about comfort, nostalgia and order. Not that these are wholly mythic but it is far too easy to accept them without challenge. The most glaring case in point here is Sleeping Murder. This is a dark book. Let us rephrase the plot. A Doctor has an overwhelming incestuous, and possibly originally paedophilic, lust for his sister. In furtherance of this he resorts to such devices as deliberately laming her by infecting a wound so she cannot dance. In the end he murders her and drives her husband to madness. Christie knew exactly what she was doing here - The Duchess of Malfi theme is quite deliberate. It is perfectly possible to imagine a film noir version of Sleeping Murder which showed events in chronological order - that is eliminated the mystery - this would certainly be a very long way from the book but it would highlight and centralise an element which is undeniably present. The comic elements which theMcEwan introduces serve only to highlight by distortion. They are utterly absent from the book.

 

All three of these adaptations adopt a similar approach - the RomCom. The issue is what this approach tells us about Christie. The debate about her humour is an old one, and also a very difficult one as any debate about humour is (due to its unparalleled subjectivity). I certainly do not regard Christie as humourless, but equally I do not think she is at her best when regarded as a comic writer. Within the Marple canon it can however definitely be said that there is more humour in some books than others - Murder at the Vicarage has more humour than Sleeping Murder or Nemesis. So the degree to which the comic elements of the McEwans will jar depends on the book - in Sleeping Murder they jarred a lot, and I am honestly terrified of what they would do to Nemesis (a book which even the Hickson utterly distorted by softening and romanticising the plot). But it is possible, in some cases, by stretching a point to argue that the McEwans emphasise an overlooked aspect of Christie in terms of humour.

 

The Romance element is very different. Let us face facts. Christie was very, very bad at this kind of writing. (there are many GA mystery fans who think this is a great strength as they deplore the intrusion of romance into the puzzle). AC mostly eschews this sort of thing which is just as well because when she attempts it we get the kind of clichéd drivel so apparent in the two romances of Moving Finger. Here we get one clear example where McEwan improves on both Christie and Hickson - Hickson has that ghastly transformation sequence, which while 'true to the book' in its' truth only reveals the poverty of Christie's writing in this area. Playing the whole thing as aRomCom allowedMcEwan to get away with it. There are GA writers who could doRomCom - early (and lesser) Allinghams and above all the, unjustly neglected, mysteries of Georgette Heyer spring to mind. Christie could not. The early TandTs are another glaring demonstration of this.

 

So basically theRomCom only serve to draw our attention to 'weaknesses' in Christie's writing. I say weaknesses but it might be better argued that they are strengths in that Romance and Comedy are distractions from what really matters, that in which Christie was an unparalleled genius - plot and puzzle.

 

In the case of Pricking, McEwan did not have to grapple with the spectre of Hickson. But the approach adopted was pretty much the same. The whole issue of adopting this book is complex since as I recall large chunks of it are devoted to the problems of ageing. TheRomCom approach is quite inappropriate. It would have been much better to go back to the early T and T's even if this would mean substantial re-writing in terms of period. Another book which one desperately hopes they do not consider is the wonderful N or M - an adaptation of this in theRomCom vein really would be a travesty too far. On the other hand I suspect Sittaford (a very minor Aggie) will lend itself well to the RomCom treatment - there is certainly another embarrassing romance for them to improve upon.

 

All of the foregoing is, of course, concerned with the relation of the McEwans to the books and the Hicksons. My argument has been that in attempting to distinguish themselves from the Hicksons and establish a distinct identity the McEwans have adopted an approach which I have termedRomCom - an approach which only increases our understanding of the books by negation, omission or pointing out weaknesses - which while of interest can hardly be deemed a positive contribution.

 

When we turn to the films as works in their own right however different conclusions may be drawn. It is probably right to say that the last place such judgements should be made is among those familiar with the books/Hicksons - we are far too influenced by preconceptions and prejudices. But as far as I can tell they were full of pleasures both in terms of the comedy and the production - The Moving Finger being especially successful in its camp nostalgia - so that I for one revelled in both the campness and the nostalgia. In terms of performance Charles Dance as the alcoholic vicar in Pricking gave an awesome comic turn and the script provided him with a line which will live with me forever...

 

Someone referred to the Good Samaritan....Dance replied..

 

Bloody do-gooder!

 

In their own terms this line would have been enough to justify all 3 for me! But their were many other pleasures of a similar if lesser nature.

 

Finally a word about the vital issue of audience figures. As previously related McEwan goes out on ITV (the UK's major commercial terrestrial channel) in its prime drama slot - that is 9pm on a Sunday night. Thus far this year this slot has seen Suchet's Blue Train, Foyle's War, Lewis (the non-Morse Morse spin-off), the McEwans and Midsomer Murders. As will be seen this slot in itself has an identity - for the gentler end of the mystery spectrum (ITV runs Rebus for instance on weekday nights by comparison). No doubt this allocation of its prime 'spot' is determined by audience results and figures. In the hour proceeding these programmes we have gentle 'family-orientated' dramas - this year Wild at Heart about a family relocating to Africa and tending sickly elephants and lion cubs. The audience figures, which may be found at BARB (http://www.barb.co.uk/index1.cfm) are fascinating. Triumphantly on top is Lewis with 11.31 million (anything over 10 million for a non-soap drama in the UK is incredibly successful nowadays) showing the pull of Morse even from beyond the grave. The Suchet Blue Train is actually lowest at 7.87 but I suspect this may have something to do with its being shown on January 1st. The McEwans started off with 8.74 for Sleeping but then declined to 7.89 and 7.93 for Finger and Pricking. Foyle was around 8 million and the one Midsomer so far recorded was 8.54. All these figures are good and mean that the programmes concerned were the highest rated dramas in their particular weeks with the exception of the fore-mentioned Wild at Heart.

 

All of the foregoing is important because we need to always bear in mind that productions like the McEwans are expensive ventures which get made because they are a commercial proposition. They are commercial because they conform to a certain formula which is found to be successful in this particular 'spot'. What this may say about British televisual tastes is a much wider question. The point is that another vital influence on the way that the McEwans have been made is the necessity of obtaining good ratings and conforming to perceived audience demand. It might be argued that the fact that the series lost a million viewers after Sleeping shows they were not especially successful in this although just under 8 million is still highly respectable. In addition there are of course overseas and DVD sales but I have no data on these matters.

 

We should never however forget the commercial and financial aspects. That at least is one thing in which Christie herself would have been keenly interested!

 

NickH

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