Matthew Armitage

In the film adaptation of In a Glass Darkly, the second episode of the Thames Television series The Agatha Christie Hour, Matthew Armitage is the name given to the main protagonist of the story, who in the original text was an unnamed narrator. The part of Matthew Armitage is played by Nicholas Clay.

Mattew's backstory is considerably embellished in the adaptation compared to that of the unnamed narrator in the original. Here Matthew became best friends with Neil Carslake while at university. During the First World War, he was wounded (and decorated) for saving the live of a soldier named Barton.

Matthew had always wanted to be a history teacher but after the war he became a farmer with a farm in Suffolk (he probably inherited it from his father). After marrying Sylvia, Neil's sister, Matthew begins to have intense feelings of jealousy and rage but while these are not explained in the original, here they are partly attributed to him suffering (what we would today call) PTSD as a result of his experiences during the war. He tells his wife he always hears the sound of gunfire in his mind.

At the end of the story, when he has reconciled with his wife (after irrationally trying to strangle her) he tells her that he does not hear the sound of the guns anymore.