Murder is Easy is the second episode of the fourth series of Agatha Christie's Marple. It was broadcast on ITV by Granada Television on 17 June 2009. The screenplay was written by Stephen Churchett and the episode was directed by Hettie Macdonald. It was an adaptation of Christie's novel of the same name although the original did not feature Miss Marple.
Synopsis[]
Miss Marple meets Lavinia Pinkerton on the train and learns of her suspicions about the village deaths. Pinkerton is killed in a fall down a London station escalator while en route to Scotland Yard. Miss Marple meets 30-ish police detective Luke Fitzwilliam (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) in the village, where he is dealing with a deceased relative's property, and they recognize one another's investigative inclinations and work together to solve the murders.
Comparison with the original story[]
(may contain spoilers - click on expand to read)
- Murder is Easy was not originally a Miss Marple book, and changes the murderer's motive.
- In this adaptation, it is Miss Marple who meets Lavinia Pinkerton on the train. After Miss Marple reads about Lavinia being killed, she travels to Wychwood under Ashe for the funeral. There she teams up with Luke Fitzwilliam to investigate the sequence of unusual deaths.
- Bridget Conway does not collaborate with them until much later. Here she has a different backstory and cuts a mysterious character initially, moving around the village making her own inquiries. Significantly she had spoken to several of the people who had just died. It is later revealed that she is an adopted child searching for her roots.
- Some of the people who died are different from the original. The first to die was Florie Gibbs who, despite being experienced in country matters, supposedly ate poison mushrooms she picked herself. The second was the local vicar who failed to wear his mask when using poison near his beehives. The third is a young woman Amy Gibbs, who it is said, accidentally drank hat dye instead of her cough medicine. Major Horton's wife dies much later, apparently a suicide from an overdose of insulin.
- Some of the suspects and main characters from the original such as Gordon Whitfield and Giles Ellsworthy do not appear. The others have the same occupations but different backstories. Major Horton here is a Member of Parliament and the setting here is the weeks before the General Elections in 1955. The tension between Dr Thomas and Horton (in the original it is Thomas and Whitfield) is because they belong to opposing political parties. There is a sideplot involving Mr Abbot, a supporter of Horton, who has ambitions of usurping and taking over from him.
- Honoria Waynflete is portrayed as a younger woman. Whitfield is not featured, and here it is Horton who once asked her to marry him but she turned him down because she had to look after her intellectually-challenged brother. Like in the original, she is ultimately unmasked as the mass murderer.
- There is no climactic scene in the woods--here Miss Marple reveals the facts during a denouement. Honoria's motive here is not that she wants to cast blame on Horton. She is trying to protect a guilty secret from many years ago: she had an unwanted pregnancy after being raped by her brother, whom she subsequently pushed into a river. She then abandoned the baby by floating her in a basket down the river. The baby was rescued, adopted by an American family, the Learys, and grew up to be Bridget Conway.
- Some twenty years later, when Bridget Conway came back to the village to make enquries, Honoria knew her secret might be exposed. She then systematically killed anyone who might expose her, such as the vicar whom she confided in, Doctor Humbleby whom she consulted about a possible abortion, Florrie Gibbs who provided herbal potion to induce abortion which Honoria ultimately did not use. Mrs Horton is the last to die in this adaptation. She was the one who rescued the baby from the river and recognised the birthmark on Bridget.
Cast[]
- Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple
- Steve Pemberton as Henry Wake
- Shirley Henderson as Honoria Waynflete
- Sylvia Syms as Lavinia Pinkerton
- Benedict Cumberbatch as Luke Fitzwilliam
- Lyndsey Marshal as Amy Gibbs
- James Lance as Dr Geoffrey Thomas
- Tim Brooke-Taylor as Dr Edward Humbleby
- Camilla Arfwedson as Rose Humbleby
- Hugo Speer as James Abbot
- Anna Chancellor as Lydia Horton
- David Haig as Major Hugh Horton
- Margo Stilley as Bridget Conway
- Jemma Redgrave as Jessie Humbleby
- Russell Tovey as PC Terence Reed
- Stephen Churchett as Coroner
- Steven Hartley as George Rogers
- Julian Lightwing as Leonard Waynflete
- Uncredited actor as the Reverend Michael Minchin
- Wonky Pooh the Persian cat
Mentioned
- Florence Gibbs
- Henry Temple
- Lord Whitfield
- The Learys
- Mr Empson - a confidential investigator in Darlow
- Gloria - his secretary
Tropes and Themes[]
Filming Locations[]
- Blewbury, Oxfordshire
- Church of St Michael - church and church yard scenes
- William Malthus Charity School building - clinic and residence of the Humblebys
- Church Road round the corner from the Charity School - where Miss Marple asks Luke about lunch with Bridget Conway
- House at Church End next after the church - could be the house of Honoria Waynflete