January 8th, 2021 By David Knox Make a commentFiled under: Streaming,
Four Agatha Christie mysteries, Sparkling Cyanide screen on Acorn TV this month.
Monday 11 January
Spirited dialogue, posh Roaring Twenties style and devious mysteries abound as Francesca Annis (Jane Eyre, Marple) and James Warwick (Doctor Who, Murder She Wrote) star in Agatha Christie’s tales of crime-solving couple Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. The feature-length prequel, The Secret Adversary, introduces the detective duo while Partners in Crime finds Tommy and Tuppence newly married and turning pro, as they launch their International Detective Agency. A master and mistress of disguise with a reputation amongst bellboys everywhere for being the worst tippers in town, they undertake a vast array of cases from missing persons and haunted houses, through smuggling, thievery, connivance, skullduggery and, of course, murder.
own.
The thought of adding them to my shelves was like a small death (not the good sort), submitting to a self I was either afraid of becoming or afraid I’d always been: turning my back on the discothèque for reruns of Midsomer Murders
. Admitting to a fatal lack of cool. I know liking this kind of thing puts me in the company of highly enthused millions. It’s just that most of them have retired.
“Grandma lit” isn’t a bad name for it – the sort of books grandmothers love, enough to bind by hand. The sort some people refer to as “comforting” or “cosy”, in that Certain Tone reserved also for “comfort eating”, “comfy clothes”, “comfortable relationships” – the insinuation being that it is slovenly to crave to be comfortable. I wish these people a lifetime of unreadable Nobel prize-winners, salad and tight shoes. The heart wants what it wants: lots of elaborate train timetables, arcane matchmaking schemes and stoved-in heads.