The Unbreakable Alibi (Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime episode)

The Unbreakable Alibi is the 7th episode of the television series Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime. The episode was written by David Butler and directed by Christopher Hodson and first broadcast on 11 December 1983. It is an adaptation of the Agatha Christie short story of the same name.

Synopsis
A young man hires the Beresfords to break an alibi which his girlfriend has concocted. She has told him that she will do whatever he wants if he break her alibi and he intends to ask her to marry him.

Comparison with the original story
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) This adaptation follows the text of the short story faithfully for most of its length. The various interviews with Le Marchant, at Bon Temps, with the dining car attendant on the train, and with the Castle hotel receptionist, head waiter and chambermaid are all dramatised. At Bon Temps, Tommy did not need to go through various waiters. He was apparently known to Henri, the head waiter and he provided all the information. The interviews with the porters at Torqquay station was not dramatised. Tuppenece did not speak to Mrs Oglander--they sent Albert Batt to speak to her in this adaptation. Tuppence does go and see Marjory Leicester but this is not depicted on screen and she only reports it to Tommy afterwards. There is no interview with the cleaning lady outside Una's flat nor is there mention of Tommy interviewing Dicky Rice.

The clue which provides the breakthrough comes about in a different way. In the original, Tommy remarks that they might have been better off going to the music and enjoying some jokes about mothers-in-law, twins and beer...." In the adaptation Tommy makes a casual remark about "astral bodies" from which Tuppence is inspired to think about Gemini, the twins.

The episode did deviate in the final quarter by adding a sub-plot that Una Drake and Peter Le Marchant were involved with a gang stealing valuable paintings to order for collectors abroad and Le Marchant dying accidentally in a tussle with Una when he refused to pay her her share of the proceeds.

Cast

 * Francesca Annis as Tuppence Beresford
 * James Warwick as Tommy Beresford
 * Reece Dinsdale as Albert Batt
 * Ellis Dale as Henri
 * Michael Jayes as Peter Le Marchant
 * Preston Lockwood as Head Waiter
 * Tim Meats as Montgomery Jones
 * Anna Nygh as Una & Vera Drake
 * Gay Soper as Hotel Receptionist
 * Stephen Wale as Dining Car Attendant
 * Elaine Wells as Chamber Maid