Two apparently unrelated people turned up as corpses the first a young woman, whose body is discovered in the library of something of a stately house.
The second that of a young school girl, found in a burnt out car in a disused quarry.
What is the connection if any?
What is the relevance of the classical music composer Mozart, to absolutely anything at all.
What intrigued me was Dolly Bantry the garrulous companion of Miss Marple, who perpetually pestered our sleuth on the drop of a scone.
Expecting her friend to have cracked the case, from the initial seconds of her very arrival on the scene.
While the sleuth herself takes her tranquil way through the byways, matters occurring apparently as in some trance or dream.
The principle police man on the job Detective Inspector Slack one could describe as a 'Jobsworth', in that he prided himself as being able to solve the crimes by "old fashioned detection". In his case a matter of ticking the appropriate boxes, and covering all of the conceivable angles.
At the end I confess to have been as confused as, well Dolly Bantry as to what had actually transpired.
It was for me incredibly convoluted normally I could spot deliberate red herrings, but on this occasion if there were any I totally missed them.
I can only imagine that Agatha Christie had an amazingly, here I am endeavouring to describe her whole rationale.
I found it simply amazing the first word that popped into my mind, all the more so when I looked at its textbook description. The word in question is Scatalogical, reading the initial description it couldn't have been wider of the mark.
But an alternative answer was somewhat closer to my idea, being an 'idea or way of thinking that is neither sensible or logical'. Though why anyone would imagine combining logical with something, so unmentionable is quite frankly beyond me.
The second thought that occurred was that of 'a collector of unconsidered trifles', but whence does that emanate?
I just had to look that up and what do you know?
It emanates from non other than Shakespeare, from a character Autolycus in The Winters Tale.
Who considered himself as a "snapper up of unconsidered trifles".
In many ways I think that applies to many of us, over their lifetime collecting innumerable ephemera without even considering it.
Unbelievably this is the first episode of Miss Marple I have ever seen and seeing that it's on for, no less than three whole hours it is a flipping marathon.
It has Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and the only time, I have seen her in anything related to this was in a film version.
The 1961 movie Murder She Said with Margaret Rutherford as the redoubtable female sleuth, Joan Hickson was the surly Mrs Kidder the Housekeeper.
I have to say that as yet I still have not actually read a single Miss Marple novel,
and frankly I can't see myself starting now.
So I certainly can't attest to which actress makes for the perfect Miss Marple, though I have a notion of Agatha Christie the authors preference.
From my understanding Christie's ideas of the character, certainly approximated Joan Hickson in appearance.
Also Marple's manner and demeanour that of the studious soul observing the world around her, without apparently noticing anything at all.
All this is certainly at odds with Margaret Rutherford's rather ebullient performance, in personally far too few movie characterisations.
For me it's generally good to view familiar actors in anything especially older material, my favourite here is someone that I have not seen for many years.
That is Andrew Cruickshank here playing a Conway Jefferson, that I really recall from an old TV favourite. The first television adaptation of Doctor Finlay's Casebook, where Cruickshank is the eponymous Doctor Cameron the surgeries patriarch.
A familiar face from a programme that I rarely watch that of Allo Allo, is the town constable Officer Crabtree.
The actor is Albert Bostrom here playing George Bartlett, though strangely uncredited in this episode.
The actor Moray Watson seems to have been somewhat typecast, as military gentlemen here he is a Colonel Bantry.
I know him from two different shows one is Darling Buds of May, where he is the Brigadier.
The other show is Rumpole of the Bailey where he portrayed, the barrister George Frobisher.
The most unlikely actor to me to make any appearance is non other than Valentine Dyall who played Lorrimer.
I have heard his name in relation to a character named 'The Man In Black', lwhich was apparently a radio role from the 1940's.
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