Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *
Cast: David Walliams, Jessica Raine, James Fleet, Matthew Steer, Alice Krige, Clarke Peters, Jonny Philips, Paul Brennen, Mary Roscoe, Andrew Havill, Richard Dillane, Madeline Appiah, Catherine Harvey, Peter Vollebregt, Bentley Kim, Robert Whitelock, Samuel Oatley, Robert Horwell, Julian Rivett, Camilla Marie Beeput, George Taylor, Peter Gordon, Jamie Taylor, Ian Hogan.
The world has ever been thus mad and in a world of such insanity, where men’s alliances to their country and their values are turned upside down; the only thing to do is keep the faith and believe that all will come right in the end, not something that instantly comes to mind as the B.B.C. adapt the lesser of Agatha Christie’s works in Partners in Crime for the 21st Century audience.
Only Agatha Christie could come up with minds so sharp as Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple and have both characters loved by so many across the world that television was always going to immortalise both detectives and forever seal the genius that resided in Ms. Christie forever. Yet somehow the adventures of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have always seemed to be nothing more than a sideshow to the main event, the unappealing starter before the best dish in the house arrives to great acclaim and banging on tables.
The 1980s version, the rather disappointing series starring Francesca Annis and James Warwick had at least the semblance of glamour and hopeful gravitas that went with the times, even if the plots and murders were almost instantly forgettable and easy for the armchair detective to solve. Yet the B.B.C., surely in all good faith, decided that with I.T.V. no longer having the monopoly on all things Christie as both Poirot and Ms. Marple finally succumbing to the ravages of time and the realisation that not an actor living will ever top David Suchet’s command performance as the Belgian Detective, to bring an updated-slightly risky version of Partners In Crime back to the television screens. It is a decision that is of the greatest and ill-equipped folly.
In the first of two stories to dwindle the figures of Sunday night viewing, The Secret Adversary, the Beresford’s are beset by enemies on all sides as the reality of the cold war starts to hit home and the enemy is no longer lurking at the gate, he is making tea and spoiling for a fight in the living room.
It is a shame for the cast list is one that the viewer will want to like, they will want to see it a vindication of keeping Agatha Christie’s works in the minds of new and older fans alike. Yet despite David Walliams and Jessica Raine looking as though they could pass for a typical 1950s couple helping the cause to root of Britain’s enemies, they somehow seem so mismatched, so utterly failing in their appeal that the whole point of the drama is not even a sideshow, it is the clown outside the big top teasing the visitors because it has not worked on its routine enough to be allowed into the circus as a main event.
The only redeeming feature of the three episodes was in the casting of the great Alice Krige as the bullying self obsessed Opera singer Rita Vandemeyer, a part that the actor took to with great relish and the only pleasing performance in the whole sorry tale.
Not every character written by the distinguished grand-dame of the British murder mystery worked, some were down-right unpalatable, yet Ms. Christie’s main protagonists were a cut above almost anybody before or since, with two very obvious exceptions, television has done little to change that view.
Ian D. Hall