MISS MARPLE – AGATHA CHRISTIE - #BLOGCHATTERA2ZCHALLENGE2022

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I ran into Miss Marple when I was in my teens, or maybe even a little before, along with Hercule Poirot, and Tommy and Tuppence! Those were the days I would devour all the books I could lay hands on, and Agatha Christie was the one writer who could always entertain me, come rain or sunshine.

While Poirot was the more flamboyant character, with his egg-shaped dome and prized moustache, Miss Marple took a little longer to creep into my heart. Apparently meek, unassuming and a elderly spinster, she did not have the histrionics. However, her little grey cells were as potent as those of Poirot, sometimes even sharper.

‘The Murder at the Vicarage’ (1930) was the book in which she made her appearance, and ‘Sleeping Murder’ (1976) the one in which she exited. Miss Marple’s character was based on Christie’s step-grandmother and her older female friends, prototypes of whom could be found in tiny villages across England.

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Miss Marple was not a particularly nice person in the first few books. She was a gossip who loved poking her nose into people’s lives. This did help her in solving her cases but did not win her any friends in St. Mary Mead. Luckily, her character evolved over the books as she became a better human being, and better liked all around.

Miss Marple was fond of saying that all kinds of crimes and criminals could be found at St. Mary’s mead, even though it was a small village. She would link previous incidents with the present, and she had a deep distrust of the goodness of human nature. Consequently, she was never surprised at how low the human mind could fall, a trait that helped her to solve many a mystery in her quiet, genteel way.

Miss Marple’s closest relative appears to be her nephew, Raymond West, who was a well-known author, and sceptical of his aunt’s investigative abilities. She did surprise him, off and on, and it was he who aided her financially since she had never had a job. However, she did have her own independent means as well.

While Miss Marple appeared to be your average English spinster, gentle and unassuming, she had a shrewd brain that constantly ticked and a talent for dissecting human nature.

Agatha Christie remains the world’s best-selling author with 66 detective novels and 14 short story anthologies. Her play, ‘The Mouse Trap’ remains the world’s longest running play.

In 1949, a stage adaptation of ‘Murder at the Vicarage’ came out at Northampton. What is interesting is that 35-year-old Barbara Mullen played Miss Marple. The play toured England after its London debut. In 1974, years after, Mullen who was now 60, played the tole all over again for a year.

Many films based on Christie’s books were produced over the decades. George Pollack directed four of them from 1961 to 1964. Margaret Rutherford played Miss Marple in all of them. She made changes in the character envisaged by Agatha Christie, which the latter disapproved of. However, the author dedicated her popular novel (one of my favourites), ‘The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side’ to Rutherford.

                                            Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple

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The most famous version of ‘The Mirror Crack’d…’ was the one directed by Guy Hamilton in which Angela Lansbury was Miss Marple. The all-star cast included Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis and Kim Novak.

Many television shows also came out from 1984 to 1992. The one titled ‘Miss Marple’ was helmed by the BBC and featured Joan Hickson playing the title role. The story goes that in 1940, Christie witnessed her acting in a play adapted from one of her books titled ‘Appointment with Death’. After it was done, Christie apparently wrote the actor a note saying. “I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple.”

                                                 Joan Hickson as Miss Marple

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