FROM BOOK TO SERIES:" MISS MARPLE

So - Apparently, the writers for he BBC couldn't find enough Christie works to fill heir series, so they took a story which had absolutely NOTHING to do with Miss Jane Marple ... and just tossed her in there.

Cheky Bastards!

As usual ... there's the normal SPOILER ALERT

And the reminder that the YouTubes at the end are NOT mine in any way, shape, or form ... I simply include them for your convienience.

Although - I will say  have only found 2 audiobooks at the moment - however one is a very computerized voice (you can tell by how it reacts to commas in the text) and the other has a major skip within the story line (suddenly there's a policeman there, where there wasn't one vefore)

So ... patience.

THE SITTAFORD MYSTERY

Like I said, has absolutely NOTHING to do with Miss Marple -- in fac, she isn't even a blip on the radar.

And they took a lot of Liberty with the story itself ...

The BBC episOGICAL DIG in Egypt 19326 (more on this later), and then it goes from some discovery which was made to a clandestine  meeting in 1951 (25 years later) between "Clive" and "Sir Winston Churchill" ... "Clive" is the important one here, btw ...

 It then jumps to a scene where Clive (played by Timothy Dalton) is talking to his ward about his (the ward's) upcoming marriage ... interesingly enough - I didn't hear anything in the audiobook I listened to about there being a ward (but then, this is also the AB which had chunks of the book missing ... I have got to find another AB!)

Then it puts Clive on a train, where a elderly woman opens the door to his private carriage looking for her nephew -- Jane Marple instantly recognizes Clive, but not from all the news stories about him or about anything he has done, but simply as her nephew's neighbor ... wow ...

That's is waaaaaaaay off base/off script from the book ...

Then it jumps to his ward getting so drunk he falls on his face ...

Back to Clive driving home from the trainstation with Miss Marple in his car ... remember - she isn't even supposed to be in this story  She gets dropped off at her nephews house and he continues on his way ... 

He is greeted by his Butler .... this is sooooo far off course ...

You see - in the novel, it tells how Sittaford was purposefully chosen as the home by Clive because of its REMOTENESS ... there were only 7 houses and 3 sho[s in the entire town ... and 2 of those shared a store, and one of those was a post office!

The book does go on to say that Clive rented out his Sittaford home for the winter to a widow and her daughter for the winter, and he rented a place in another small town near by - but I would imagine all the small towns in the area would have been basically the same.

It also shows that Burnaby, Clive's best friend for lack of a better term, is there waiting for him .... 

The episode is so different from the book so far, that it's nearly an entirely different story ... hardly fair to compare these two at all!

Not the least of which is CLive staying in Sittaford's local hotel, only thing is ... it doesn't have one!

Oh what a great mess they made of this story.

Its as if, the writer was given a list of ch

aracters, and a basic outline of what was to happen ... and let it go from there!

Its almost as if the writer, who likely came from London, just couldn't imagine what an old small town was like!  And remember, this was filmed in 2008, broadcast in 2009, so it would have been some 60 years from World War 2.

Now ... in 1952, King George VII died and Queen Elizabeth abended to the throne ... This occured in February, and the "cold war" was in full effect ... and while Britian was "growing up" so to speak, it still had several small villages - in fact, it still does.

Still - it is hard to believe that they would have been "forgotten" ... someone needed to do a little more research I think.

 

audiobook: This is the computerized, unemotinal/monotone, version .... but it appears to be complete ... and there's a transcript at the botom of the "description" area.