Zoe Wanamaker is a terrible Ariadne Oliver

[Needhelp101]

Bit obscure, I know, and only for Agatha Christie fans (I've been revisiting Poirot and Miss Marple for some comfort viewing) but Zoe isn't Ariadne. She's far too clipped and curt for the character.

On the other hand, David Suchet is perfection as Poirot.

She's a shit Madam Hooch as well.

Huge Agatha Christie fan here and... I think yabu! Wanamaker does it just how I imagined

@Mummy1608

Huge Agatha Christie fan here and... I think yabu! Wanamaker does it just how I imagined

She's just too efficient. I always saw Ariadne as someone slightly ditzy, bumbling etc.

Surely the best Miss Marple is Jane Hickson?

She’s incredibly bumbling. Have you seen the episode where she doesn’t realise Poirot has moved?

YABVU

Yanbu

I agree completely, although i like Margaret Rutherford she isnt Miss Marple

David suchet, is and always will be, Poirot 😀

Surely the best Miss Marple is Jane Hickson

Yes

I can't stand her. She's awful in Poirot and even worse in Harry Potter.

I do think Joan Hickson is a brilliant Marple, but have to admit Geraldine McEwan was really good as well - she's got that twinkly cleverness in her face that works really well. And Margarent Rutherford is a pure delight. The less said about Julia McKenzie the better.

There is only one Miss Marple and that is (or sadly was) Joan Hickson.

Nobody else can even come close.

Geraldine Mcewan was hopelessly unconvincing as a Victorian lady - which is what Marple is. Brilliant and an astute psychologist yes, but no lady. She missed that bit. Whereas both Hickson and actually Rutherford also capture that.

Joan Hickson is the best tv Miss Marple. June Whitfield in the BBC Radio 4 dramatisations is my favourite overall though.

I like her. She isn't copying another actress playing the part, she is playing her own version.

I always think Ariadne should be quite large and have a bosom, draped with scarves and jewellery.

David Suchet and Joan Hickson for me. The theme tunes are the best too.

@Mummy1608

Huge Agatha Christie fan here and... I think yabu! Wanamaker does it just how I imagined

Me too!

Suchet and Hickson are, of course, the canonical incarnations of their characters (as is Jeremy Brett of Holmes), but I have a lot of affection for McEwan and McKenzie.

It's just a different sort of programme with them, and I enjoy them in a different way.

I kind of think she is the same in every part. Wonder if she would have done so well if not for a famous name.

David Suchet and Joan Hickson for me.

I agree that Zoe is dreadful as Ariadne Oliver - but so was Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. Agree with pp that McEwan just didn't grasp the Victorian spinster mind.

I never liked Wanamaker either. I always thought Stephanie Cole would have been a good Ariadne.

I would have loved to see June Whitfield as Miss Marple!

Zoe Wanamaker was good as Ariadne.

She's got that slight woman's lib feel, and she looks the part of the literary writer.

There are so many blood hound-type older ladies in the books - like Mrs Masterson in 'Dead Man's Folly', that you don't want more.

Also, if she became friends with that ethereal , blonde beauty in 'Halloween', I don't think she'd be a bulldog in tweeds; I also think that Poirot liked to be friends with attractive yet intelligent women , like Zoe: not with an eccentric Margaret Rutherford type at all.
June Whitfield was very good as that ' unsafe' old lady in the one about the picture, and twins with flower names, which Geraldine McEwan starred in as Marple, along with a very impressive Greta Satchi as Tuppence.

I think McEwan was in some very fine Marple productions with good casting, although some liberties taken with plotting.

Big AC fan here, got all the books and I never tire of reading them. A mind like a steel trap. Joan Hickson, David Suchet (and a random Jeremy Brett) are the best actors for those characters, absolutely how I imagined them. Zoe W...I have to concur. Too curt, not vague enough.

I always think Ariadne should be quite large and have a bosom, draped with scarves and jewellery.

Ariadne was Agatha's alter ego, so I always imagine her looking like Agatha, but more exuberant and unconventional and less organised. Flowing dress rather than tailored suit. Agatha by all accounts was quite shy and reserved, Ariadne wasn't.

Love AC- thanks for starting this thread OP💐.
Joan Hickson- the definitive Miss Marple for me. Apparently a very prescient Agatha Christie wrote to her after seeing her in one of her plays saying she hoped Joan would play her “dear Miss Marple” one day. Commendations don’t come any higher than that!

I love AC too! I’m normally not fussed for the Tommy and Tuppence stories, but the most recent versions were watchable

Joan Hickson was the actual Miss Marple. Geraldine McEwan was awful. The rest fall somewhere in between