Joan Hickson

'Cause, you know, they never actually met, but they did on that particular occasion.

Joan Hickson and David were in different compartments on the special train that they ran from London to Turkey, and when they got off the train, he had this lovely bouquet, and he stepped over to Joan Hickson, and he bowed over her hand and handed her the bouquet, and he said, "At last, we meet." Oh.

I mean, it was a magical moment, but you're right.

Oh.

And so there's a new, there's a new Poirot coming on television.

I've already said I, I just can't go there.

And I'm having trouble in Lucy Foley's book, I'm having trouble seeing Joan Hickson-

Mm

yeah.

Anthony goes on to say, no Miss Marple has ever beaten Joan Hickson for her multi-layered rendition.

Yeah, I think they only did one series with Julian McKenzie, didn't they, before they

finished it? Then he goes on a bit of a rant about the 80s.

Oh

... and the Joan Hickson Miss Marple theme music.

Wow.

Mm.

Um, I do think I like the, I like...

I, on reread I really appreciated the irony.

It's all ironic because it's all about how Joan is not the person that she thinks she is.

Mm-hmm.

You would make it the modern day.

So it's this weird thing about like it's like when Sleeping Murder and Nemesis get adapted for Joan Hickson TV series.

We're actually talking like only about 15 years, 10 years after they were published.

And so there's this weird thing about, because she had such a long career, you know, that actually making this 1983 is not really any more egregious, I think, than making, you know, The Mirror Cracked in 1953.

the question is,

why crime? You know, I grew up watching Joan Hickson's Miss Marple and Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes that my brother and I were completely obsessed with from a very early age.

And what we both loved about it was we would watch it with our grandmother, who we adored, and she would take us off to the cinema and kind of enthuse about our world of kind of make-believe and fantasy.

We'd watch it with our parents, and we would watch it with one another.

A lot of people didn't like that for many reasons, one of which will move in the timeline around and stuff.

But if you read the books and the stories, Geraldine McEwan's portrayal of Marple was actually pretty accurate, as opposed to Joan Hickson.

Spot on.

I mean, Joan Hickson was wonderful, but yeah, but she wasn't as accurate to the books as McEwan.

Miss Marple, she's in less books and stories than Poirot, which I'm sure is one reason why she's not quite as widely read.

And also in some of those books, she frankly doesn't appear all that much.

Can you imagine Elizabeth Taylor playing the fading actress in this story? Then you had Kim Novak, Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis.

Then in 1992 came the BBC version with the wonderful Joan Hickson as Marple.

So you've got Rachel Wagstaff's stage adaptation stays reassuringly close to the Christie world, I think.

And it's exactly the sort of murder mystery that feels at home at the mill, I thought.

Marple to the core.

Marple is my comfort watch, but only Joan Hickson.

I don't care about this new Rutherford nonsense.

Actually, Margaret Rutherford came before Joan Hickson.

Who's the new lady? Geraldine something.

I'm a Hickson truther.

And David Suchet, very dapper.

he's my size steps out of the car he has this big bouquet in his hand it was so great and joan hickson steps out of her car and he walks over and he bows to her and he hands her the bouquet and he says at last we meet because they never did you know in all of her books she never did a crossover you

were going to say i mean doesn't there happen doesn't somebody have to die on that train every

I don't think that they were insured for an actual murder that weekend.