Philippa Pritchard

Philippa Pritchard is a character created for the 2010 ITV adaptation of the short story The Blue Geranium. Philippa is the sister of Mary Pritchard whose death is the core event in the plot.

Philippa had served as a W.A.A.F. during the Second World War. There she met and fell in love with George Pritchard who was an R.A.F. pilot. However, Philippa introduced George to her sister Mary who took George away and subsequently married him. Philippa married George's younger brother Lewis. After the war, George set up an airline and became a millionaire while Lewis remained a penniless author.

The trope of the seven deadly sins permeates the plot of the show. For Miss Marple, Philippa personified "wrath". Although Philippa devoted herself to looking after her sister who was an invalid, she was also filled with anger for taking George away from her. Philippa often prepared dishes for Mary to cheer her up but she also poisoned the food to make Mary feel ill. She would later admit that she did this to punish Mary and did not intend to kill her. Among the poisons she would add to the food were Sylvan Flakes (a kind of mild detergent) and pine disinfectant.

Nurse Copling later found out about what Philippa was doing and tried to blackmail her. She said that with Mary dead and George about to be hanged for her murder, Philippa and Lewis would stand to inherit everything. In which case, Copling wanted half of the windfall otherwise she would report the fact that Philippa had been poisoning her sister.

The show does not reveal what happened to Philippa and Lewis at the end.

The part of Philippa Pritchard in the show was played by Claudie Blakeley.