AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MARPLE: ENDLESS NIGHT

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Following the success of A Caribbean Mystery and Greenshaw’s Folly, award-winning actress Julia McKenzie reprises her role as the nation’s favourite spinster sleuth, Miss Marple, in the latest Agatha Christie adaptation, Endless Night.

Reunited alongside Julia to play young lovers are Tom Hughes (Cemetery Junction, The Lady Vanishes, Silk) and Joanna Vanderham (The Paradise, Above Suspicion) who were previously seen together in the Stephen Poliakoff drama, Dancing on the Edge.

Completing the cast for ITV’s new adaptation are Aneurin Barnard (Citadel, We’ll Take Manhattan), Birgitte Hjort Sorensen (Borgen, At World’s End), Glynis Barber (EastEnders, Dempsey and Makepeace), Hugh Dennis (Outnumbered, My Hero), Tamzin Outhwaite (Great Expectations, The Fixer), Wendy Craig (Butterflies, The Forsyte Saga) and Rosalind Halstead (Wuthering Heights, Sherlock).

If you really want to know what will happen, read on, but there may be a spoiler or two ahead.

Whilst staying with Marjorie (Wendy Craig), a recently widowed friend, Miss Marple comes across the young and handsome chauffeur, Mike Rogers (Tom Hughes) – a working-class charmer, who dreams of more to life than… this.

They quickly strike up a bond, chatting about local beauty spot, Gypsy’s Acre – to Mike’s eye, the ideal place to build one’s fantasy home. Despite the asking price being far too high for a drifter like him, and the alleged gypsy’s curse cast upon the place, he can’t help but return. But this time, he meets Ellie (Joanna Vanderham); and several lives are changed forever.

Ellie Goodman is an American heiress, on the cusp of turning 21, and yearning to escape her closeted existence. It turns out that opposites do indeed attract, and Mike and Ellie fall quickly in love, with Gipsy’s Acre being the spot where they set their hearts on living – with the help of Mike’s childhood friend, Robbie Hayman (Aneurin Barnard), now a promising architect. The two go back a long way, and a devoted Robbie longs to pay back Mike for trying, if unsuccessfully, to save his brother’s life several years before.

Ellie and Mike tie the knot in a secret ceremony, but it isn’t long before the “vultures descend”, and the pair have to explain themselves to Ellie’s money-hungry stepmother Cora, and supercilious lawyer Andrew Lippincott. The only one who shows them any real support is Greta, previously Ellie’s chaperone – and, before Mike came along, her only true friend in the world.

The couple have previously been warned off by the elusive gypsy, Mrs Lee, but they ignore her ancient curses, and soon Robbie has built them their dream home at Gypsy’s Acre, and they begin to settle into life in their new secluded existence. Miss Marple is always on-hand, helping Mike to adjust to his new life – acting almost as a surrogate mother, since he and his real mum have a rather strained and distrustful relationship.

The new young couple seem so happy together, but Ellie can’t get the gypsy’s curse out of her head, and when she twists her ankle, she leaps at Greta’s offer to come and stay to keep her company. Mike, on the other hand is not quite so pleased that their honeymoon idyll has been invaded by an outsider…

Meanwhile, Mrs Lee continues to make her presence felt, as the happy couple suffer from a targeted campaign of hatred designed to force them out.

Before long, tragedy strikes when Ellie is thrown from her horse and dies. A devastated Mike travels to New York to sort out his late wife’s estate with Lippincott, but then two more mysterious deaths occur. Only Miss Marple can solve the riddle of Gypsy’s Acre, but in doing so she must put her own life in very serious danger…

Cast list:

Julia McKenzie – Miss Marple

Tom Hughes – Mike Rogers

Aneurin Barnard – Robbie Hayman

Joanna Vanderham – Ellie Goodman

Wendy Craig – Marjorie Phillpot

Tamzin Outhwaite – Mrs Rogers

William Hope – Andrew Lippincott

Glynis Barber – Cora Van Stuyvesant

Michael McKell – Frank Stanford

Birgitte Hjort Sorensen – Greta

Hugh Dennis – Dr Shaw

Rosalind Halstead – Claudia Hardcastle

Celyn Jones – Sergeant Keene

Janet Henfrey – Mrs Lee

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/41807/

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