Navigation |
Geraldine McEwan in Miss Marple - Towards ZeroGeraldine McEwan returned for one of her two final appearances as Miss Marple on ITV1 on 3rd August 2008. She may not have featured in Agatha Christie's novel, Towards Zero, but that didn't stop ITV finding her a place in the TV version. Agatha Christie set her novel in what looked like the creek around Salcombe in Devon. The ITV production was also filmed in and around Salcombe. The elderly Lady Tressilian reluctantly hosts a house party at her Devon estate, where loyal companion Mary and a retired lawyer, Mr Treves, played by Tom Baker, help their wheelchair bound host entertain a glittering array of guests. Eyebrows are raised when the dashing Wimbledon tennis star Neville Strange arrives with his new wife Kay, even though his first wife Audrey is also attending. Miss Marple, an old school friend of Lady Tressilian, is intrigued when the eccentric Treves tells a story about a child murderer who was never convicted. The next day, Treves is found dead. Sexual tensions and marital mishaps play out as Miss Marple observes the guests as they holiday by the sea. And it’s not long before another gruesome murder takes place. Inspector Battle becomes Inspector Mallard in this version and is played by Alan Davies. Greg Rusedski wielded a wooden tennis racket but did not speak. The day before this was shown on ITV1, Zoe Tapper was shown getting murdered on the same channel in Foyle's War - by the bloke who had played Inspector Japp in Agatha Christie's Poirot. This time Zoe was back to life and managed to avoid getting murdered. And Mr Treves was given the first name of Frederick, presumably the name of the actor they originally wanted to play the part. Instead they got Tom Baker. ITV has had this episode available for over a year. In that time they have decided to switch the actress who plays Miss Marple and decided to show it in the dog days of August. It took the suits at ITV a long time before they decided to replace Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. The low production standards are continuity gaffes are all too evident in this episode. Let's hope the production team is also being replaced. Greg Wise was 40 when the episode was filmed and much too old to be a Wimbledon singles player in his prime. Tom Baker camped up the role as a retired and senior barrister whereas the character in the book is well-respected and serious. Gull's Point, the house where much of the action took place, was represented by at least four locations - one on a high cliff, one on a low cliff, one in the country and one somewhere else again when they looked out of a window. Viewers must have been very disoriented. And at one point during the episode the audio track was distorted. Miss Marple - Geraldine McEwan |
User loginSearchWelcome to The Internet Forum blog site. You may join blog to set up your own personal blog or to post comments - register by clicking here. You may also read all the site content without registering. Please write on any topic of interest in the blog. Tags for several categories have been set up. You can use these to index your articles - just click on the tag - but there is no need to restrict what you write to the tagged topics. The site index can also be used to locate articles by key words. Other members may add comments underneath your blog entries or articles as well. Check the links on the left for the index to some of the main categories on the site - or use the search box on the right to search for articles of interest. Who's onlineThere are currently 0 users and 24 guests online.
Who's new
|