Why oh why do TV script writers think they can improve on Agatha Christie's plots?

[questionzzz]

I absolutely hate the rewrites and plot embellishments that the newer TV scripts have done with the Agatha Christie books! It's not that they are just bizarre and unnecessary, they also have a weird ideological twist? which the original never had.
Eg just finished (re)watching "Agatha Christie's Marple: Why didn't They ask Evans". The original doesn't even have Miss Marple, ok fine, I get why they introduced her. But then, there' some completely random stuff about how the murderer, (lovers in the original) were brother and sister, long lost to their mother back in China, where the sister was sold as a "comfort woman", and now they are back plotting to kill the mother... huh? But why? why are you doing this? Most of the Poirot ones with David Suchet also have these completely random and bizarre ideological additions.

On a side note, absolutely obsessed with the 1980s shows with Joan Hickson (again)- she looks a bit like my grandma, loving the fashion, the gentle muted colours and body language.

Yes, the Joan Hickson Sleeping Murder is one of the first programmes I remember watching that I found genuinely scary - I think I even had nightmares about it.

@DannyGlickWindowTapping

Watching the Suchet Evil Under the Sun last week and not paying huge attention (I could probably speak the words with them by now!), and all I could notice was that it looked really cold! Not the weather for swimming or sunbathing. Wouldn't really work if they were all bundled up in their cardies, tho! Lol.

I used to have a very tenuous connection through work with Pauline Moran who played Miss Lemon in the Suchet adaptations and she said it was indeed very cold when they filmed Evil Under The Sun . The Ustinov film is set on a Greek island, I think, and the case were a bit disappointed when they were packed off to Devon.

The Joan Hickson Marple adaptations are lovely, although I think the McKenzie/McEwan ones look better as far as the hair/makeup/fashions are concerned - I seem to remember Megan in The Moving Finger with a terrible Princess Di 80s flicky haircut.

I do love the actors appearing in both stories - Jonathan Cake investigates witches in Marple but gets bumped off in a swimming pool in Poirot

I hated the Kenneth Brannagh version of Murder on the Orient Express, but then, I think the version with David Suchet was absolutely perfect. That and Death on the Nile are my favourite adaptations - but I love both the Peter Ustinov and David Suchet versions of the latter. The recent And Then There Were None was fantastic - no previous version (apart from a really good Russian one) has done that story properly - they always feel obliged to throw in a happy ending. Plus, Aidan Turner in a teeny tiny towel.

I also realised upon this rewatching that Agatha Christie really had it in for doctors, didn't she? Soo many of her murderers are doctors! Must be from her medical back ground!! (she was pharmacist or something during the war?)

Brad Pitt is blond not dark?? So if a character is described as dark and handsome and Mr Pitt appears on the screen I'd be upset!

The one which gave me nightmares was the Tommy/Tuppence one with old lady murderer and the painting. Another one the butchered by making it into a Marple mystery (no Marple in the original), and then giving Tuppence a very noticeable drinking problem!!

I never particularly liked Kenneth Branagh, takes himself too seriously which is inevitable I guess in a "Shakespearean" actor, and I've avoided his Murder on the Orient- simply cannot imagine him as Poirot.

@AmICrazyorWhat2 yes, really enjoying the John Moffat radio plays whilst I work. Doesn’t matter that you know who did it, can listen again and again. The June Whitfield marple ones are good too.

@IgiveupallthenamesIwantedareg0
I agree dramatizations can be disappointing (tho' they don't have to be- hence all the plaudits for Joan Hickson, Jeremy Brett David Suchet etc), but my problem/rant with the 2000 adapatations is apart from being disappointing, they're just so bizarre, pointless, and stupidly pushing a stupid narrative.

I've been ranting about this for years- the remake of At Bertram's Hotel took an already bonkers original plot and added Nazi gold & art thefts! Actual WTF. And I agree on shoe horning in lesbians unnecessarily- Cards on the Table was all over the shop- then weirdly editing out fairly clear existing subplots about someone being gay.

I definitely agree with you about 'Sleeping Murder', OP. It was very twee, with 'Helen' being a showgirl in the 'Funny Bones', and the suspects being members of that group. They had nothing to do with each other in the book.

And as for 'Nemesis', they completely butchered the story.

Hickson is the best Miss Marple by a country mile and those adaptations were exceptional. Superbly cast throughout and changes were minimal (but where done, done very well with the right Christie feel).

Lansbury gets a bit of a bad rap for her one take on the role but actually the Jane Marple of the earliest books is rather different from the later books when she is much "fluffier". Lansbury is fairly close to the early Marple.

Rutherford was nothing like her and the films took enormous liberties with their sources but are great Sunday afternoon fun with tea and crumpets.

McEwan was a great actress but totally miscast and the adaptations were mostly dire. Mackenzie better but she's no Hickson.

Helen Hayes in two US TV versions was perfectly watchable even though the show's themselves were lacklustre.

Suchet is the best Poirot but Ustinov is so watchable in Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun (the later TV films were rubbish). I can't watch Branagh - that moustache!!

I concur with Joan Hickson being the definitive Miss Marple - slight and birdlike but taking all in.

The Geraldine McEwan ones had a little flashback of Miss Marple as a young woman in WW1 having a sexual affair with a soldier (officer of course!). It was as if the producer couldn't image an unmarried woman might be a virgin in 1915 and still be interesting and not a weirdo. I thought then that than incarnation was going to be poor.

Rutherford was nothing like her and the films took enormous liberties with their sources but are great Sunday afternoon fun with tea and crumpets.

Yes, especially with the '4:50 to Paddington'. Miss Marple goes to the find the body at Rutherford Hall, which thus leaves out the character of Lucy Eylesbarrow, who is delightful and provides a romantic subplot to the story.

I watched the Branagh Orient Express and have consigned it to period murder mystery category, I do not consider it to have anything to do with the original beyond including character names and even one of those was poached from a different book, he just played too fast and loose with the original material and actually the Suchet version is very grim and nasty in a completely unnecessary way.
Yes love the radio versions of Poirot on iPlayer I like June Whitfield doing the audio as Miss Marple too, she's rather good and has just the right inflection in her voice.

I should add Suchet is Poirot for me but I really disliked the extras in Orient Express. But I love the tv versions of Miss Lemon and Hastings.

@Pashazade I like them too. They appear in far more stories than they do in the books. Hastings is only in eight Poirot stories.

Joan Hickson
Peter Ustinov

I don't really need to say any more on the portrayal of Miss Marple (not just Marple, the blasphemous knobs) and Poirot.

I agree that many of the adaptations vary wildly from the books but the play And Then There Were None written by Dame Agatha definitely has a happy ending!

I meant 'they appear in a lot more of the film adaptations than they do in the books.'

Couldn't agree more with what's been said. I've stopped watching recent adaptations because they fuck about with the plots too much. Why bother adapting Agatha Christie, world famous for her intricate, surprising plots - and think you can do better?! They don't need sexing-up, they don't need to become Scandi-noir, they need to be played straight and they completely stand up on their own merits.

I've stopped watching the annual Sarah Phelps adaptations - I actually thought that And Then There Were None wasn't badly done - a few tweaks, but it is one of the darker Christies and worked well with the treatment. Witness For The Prosecution - obviously they had to pad it out a bit. But changing the murderer in Ordeal By Innocence, and making the characters very dark, crude and coarse (which Christie never was), was a step too far, and then when I read that they'd made Poirot a priest in The ABC Murders I didn't even bother watching.

Lasted about 10 minutes into Branagh's Orient Express - just felt wrong. I have such fond memories of the 80s Poirots and Miss Marples of my childhood - I didn't mind them shoehorning Hastings and Miss Lemon into stories they didn't appear in, I can see why they did it and it was all in the spirit. It's when they try and make Christie something it's not that it really gets me. Pah.

(oh yes and PPS above who mentioned how scary the Joan Hickson Sleeping Murder was - totally! It freaked me out as a child, I can remember it vividly when she's on the stairs and the murderer is coming for her...)

Haven't read the whole thread but still recovering from the " Murder is Easy" Marple adaptation where the motive for murder is a contrived case of incestuous rape. Dame Agatha would never! So sordid and grubby.

You are definitely my people! Agree with all the comments here - particularly the love for Ustinov's Evil Under the Sun (which took some liberties with the plot but is still fabulous) and the BBC radio play adaptations. I can't remember the last 'recent' one I enjoyed - even the more recent Poirots have been ridiculous. I do love some of the early ones - Hickory Dickory Dock with Damien Lewis for example.

After that David Suchet is THE Poirot. Don't get what a PP meant about his previous life as a priest. He was in the Belgian police.

I thought this too...don't remember David Suchet's Poirot formerly being a priest?? Or even particularly religious except when we see him holding rosary beads in Murder on the Orient Express.

I thought Suchet's Murder on the Orient Express was near perfect as drama. The crisis of conscience felt very real.

I really liked The Clocks I think it followed the book reasonably well. Plus I liked the love story (soft heart!).

@alibongo5

And the adaptation of the Pale Horse - what on earth? Completely changed (and ruined) a great story.

Yes, that was an abomination

See, this is why I refuse to watch adaptations! I hate it when they change plots. It would annoy me when they dragged Miss Marple into a plot she wasn’t in originally, although I can sort of see why they do that - but changing the murderer/making Poirot a priest etc. is completely unnecessary. And to the pp who suggested it’s to modernise or liven up a story - if the story is too old-fashioned or dull for the writers, then let them write their own modern and exciting crime drama, and leave Agatha Christie alone for us to enjoy!