Mumsnet Talk

Joan Hickson for me every time too! I agree that Miss Marple would always be 'Miss' and never be called by her surname alone.

Miss M reminds me of my (now deceased) elderly cousin. She grew up in the 1930s and always kept the views and standards of that era...

And as an extra aside, a much younger Hickson appeared in a stage version of Appointment With Death (Christie removing Poirot) and after the run finished, Christie sent her a letter which said that one day, she would call her to play my dear Miss Marple. I think this was in about 1945, 40 years before the BBC called her. I think that's rather spooky, that Christie spotted this in her. Hickson kept the letter but had completely forgotten about it until the offer came. And if Christie thought she was Miss Marple, then who are we to argue?!?!

voice I agree with your assessments of said actresses.

My love of Christie came 25 years ago when I began to read the books during nightfeeds with my first DC. Towards Zero was my first and I was hooked.

Sorry, much as I like McEwan as an actress (anyone else remember Mapp & Lucia and Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit) she was totally miscast as Jane Marple. Couldn't abide her. McKenzie is better but not right.

Generally, most of the ITV adaptations have been poor. They often mess around with the books (Nemesis bore almost no resemblence at all) although they've done that with a couple of the Poirots too. And made them a bit tongue in cheek at times. They also do what the Margaret Rutherford films did and chuck her into books in which she never appeared.

Joan Hickson was just faultless. The casting director who cast her was a genius and every one of those adaptations were pretty faithful to the books and brilliantly cast.

For me the next best Jane Marple - much as Rutherford is fun - is Angela Lansbury in the film The Mirror Crack'd. It's not a brilliant film but she's actually closest to the character in the early books, both physically and character. Hickson was the Marple of the later books when Christie softened her a bit more and made her less Edwardian.

Here endeth the lesson

I love the theme music!!

oh I remember that Lottie.

we have them on DVD!!!

for me Joan Hickson as Miss Marple is a massive childhood memory of watching with my granny

Joan Hicksons eyes and her beady stare were amazing!!

Joan Hickson is irreplaceable as Miss Marple. Fantastic actress.

Julia Mackenzie is too young to play Miss Marple, & Geraldine McEwan was just 'wrong' - too tall, too smiley, just 'wrong'.

florry it was! It was the kitchen scenes when the maid had been murdered and when the step-dad tries to murder his s-d by putting her head in the gas cooker!!!

oh Lottie thats exciting.

I had the great joy of meeting Joan Hickson when the BBC filmed part of The Moving Finger at my parents house! She was lovely!!!!

Thanks Aquelven.

No wonder I'm missing them, ITV doesn't show up on sky listings.

Agree with florry88 it has to be Joan Hickson,and those adaptations are the only ones to faithfully capture the original story-lines. Some of the McEwan and Mackenzie adaptations change huge chunks of the plot,never for the better. And as Saltire pointed out,The Pale Horse was not even a Miss Marple book.

ITV3 show a lot of them, Poirot too.

My favourite is Geraldine McEwan, nicely scatty but shrewd.

Where was this on?? I love Miss Marple!

has to be Joan Hickson, love those ones!

saltire I'd never heard of it. I thought I'd read most, if not all, of the Marple books (another saddo).

I'm not keen on Julie Mackienzie as Miss Marple and I though I would like her. She seems a bit insipid to me.

I didn't see it, but doesn't it annoy you they now call it 'Marple'?! She's a genteel old lady, she's Miss Marple, & wouldn't be anything else! I'm sure she would find it very rude if someone called her 'Marple'.
<takes it too seriously!>

Pale Horse?
it wasn't originally a Marple book

Pale Horse

Which one was it?

I've tried to watch that one several times and not "got" it.

....bored me to death.

Two hours of my life I won't get back.