The BBC “not doing another series of Partners In Crime”

(C) Endor Productions 2015 – Photographer: Laurence Cendrowicz

There was mud excitement when it was announced that Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime would be getting the BBC treatment, the first fruits from the corporation’s deal with the Christie estate. David Walliams and Jessica Raine added to this excitement when they signed on to star as the husband-and-wife crime-busting team. We kept a close eye on the series, but even though it looked fantastic and Walliams and Raine certainly looked the part, Our Debs found it to be pretty thin and, actually, not well cast. Now we receive news that the show will not be coming back for a second series.

Agatha Christie’s birthday – her life in television

Today is Agatha Christie’s birthday. She would have been 125-years-old. During her lengthy career, she wrote 83 books in 85 years, which is an incredible statistic that becomes even more incredible when you find out her first book was published when she was 20. That makes her output 83 books in 65 years, which is just ridiculous. Aside from her noveles, one of her many legacies is her impact on television. Back in 1920, at the time of her first novel The Mysterious Affair At Styles, there was no television, of course, but in subsequent years the name Agatha Christie became as synonymous with the TV as it did with literature. Time to have a quick look at her televisual output.

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E6/6), Sunday 30th August, BBC1

(C) Endor Productions – Photographer: Laurence Cendrowicz

Tommy and Tuppence have made little progress with their investigations into a missing weapons scientist – their main suspect has been killed, and now a note has arrived threatening atomic devastation. So is the mysterious ‘N’ actually one of the guests in the Sans Souci hotel?

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E5/6), Sunday 23rd August, BBC1

With nuclear scientist Worthing missing, “partners in crime” Tommy and Tuppence are investigating his boarding house which is stuffed with sinister characters. Tuppence has been caught by the smooth Major Khan, who forces her to admit that she’s a spy – what was her plan exactly if he was the Russian agent ‘N’? But he says he is also an intelligence agent, searching for N on a mission of revenge.

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E4/6), Sunday 16th August, BBC1

With Tommy and Tuppence now established as agents, the dynamic duo are called in to investigate when a secret weapon is stolen. After the farrago of the introductory three-parter, which had plot holes big enough to drive a double-decker through (we never did figure out what those mysterious leaves were meant to be), one might hope that this second three-parter, based on Agatha Christie’s familiar N or M, might pull itself together. Fat chance, given the anachronistic opening discussion of bee colony collapse, and Tommy’s mincing insistence that the couple’s business future lies in wigs, known as Beresford’s Barnets.

The 10 Best Crime Dramas This Week (Monday 17th – Sunday 23rd August)

Here we go then – another week of top-hole crime drama to keep the wolf from the door. This week we’re into the penultimate episode of the superb Witnesses, while Hannibal and Aquarius continue apace. There’s also the chance to see some relatively old favourites like The Lost Honour Of Christopher Jeffries (well worth another watch), Endeavour and, of course, Sherlock. Take your pick!

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E3/6), Sunday 9th August, BBC1

Despite his impressive swimmer’s build Tommy Beresford (David Walliams) has spent the past two episodes cowering under threats from the Soho-based thugs working for the mysterious Brown, who had mistaken him for Drennan, paymaster for a Russian assassin who plans to bump off the visiting US Secretary of State. “I’m just a man, a very ordinary man”, has been his mantra up till now. Honestly, Florence (“I’m a lady”) had more cojones. But suddenly this week his dander is up. And it needs to be. He is driven to a remote location by Brown’s gang and is pressed into stealing a file marked ‘The Linden Tree’ from the third-floor archives at Military Intelligence on pain of little son George’s life. “Wouldn’t want him not to be able to play cricket, would we?” snarls Whittington. Because villains were that oblique back in the 1950s.

The Top 10 Crime Dramas To Watch This Week (Monday 3rd – Sunday 9th August)

Summer is supposed to be a quiet time on television, not least in crime drama. But the simple fact of the matter is that there’s just SO much stuff at the moment. Which is why I thought I’d bring this little feature back, to help everyone (including myself) navigate the crowded crime drama waters safely and without too much confusion. So what’s happening this week? ‘New’ Agatha Christie, continuing Jordskott, Witnesses and True Detective and the new series of New Tricks. Who said this summer is quiet?

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E2/6), Sunday 2nd August, BBC1

Last week, in search of the missing Jane and the tape identifying Russian assassin Brown, Tommy had followed a suspect to a Soho brothel, while Tuppence had gone undercover as a maid to opera singer Rita. As Lou and Andy – sorry, Tommy and Tuppence – are about to be unmasked, Tommy is conveniently mistaken for a Mr Drennan, a paymaster for the Russian assassin, while Tuppence is saved by the arrival of Rita’s romantic admirer, who turns out to be Peel (Andrew Havill), a King’s Counsel and an agent of Carter’s. She persuades him to allow her to continue her deception without informing Carter.

Review: Agatha Christie’s Partners In Crime (S1 E1/6), Sunday 26th July, BBC1

It’s 1952, and the Beresfords, prissy Tommy (David Walliams) and nosey Prudence, known as “Tuppence” (Jessica Raine, Call the Midwife) are in Paris – we know that because of a poorly CGI’d Eiffel Tower – on their way back to London after an expedition to buy a queen bee (Tommy knows all about queens, he says – ahem). While Tuppence reads a Dorothy L. Sayers novel (she also references Conan Doyle and John Buchan), a mysterious stranger, Jane Finn, hides a package in their luggage, before being chased off by a murderous birthmarked assassin.