Fri 2 Apr 2021
A TV Episode Review: AGATHA CHRISTIE’S PARTNERS IN CRIME “The Affair of the Pink Pearl†(1983).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[7] Comments
AGATHA CHRISTIE’S PARTNERS IN CRIME “The Affair of the Pink Pearl.†London Weekend Television (LWT), 16 October 1983 (Season 1, Episode 1). Francesca Annis (Tuppence Beresford), James Warwick (Tommy Beresford). Guest Cast: Dulcie Gray, Graham Crowden, Noel Dyson, Arthur Cox. Screenwriter: David Butler, based on the stories “A Fairy in the Flat,†“A Pot of Tea,†and “The Affair of the Pink Pearl,†by Agatha Christie (all three included in her collection, Partners in Crime). Available on DVD; currently streaming on BritBox.
While this was the first episode of the 1983 series on the BBC, it was preceded the week before by a standalone showing of that same network’s adaptation of The Secret Adversary, starring the same two players as Tuppence and Tommy. (I tell you this because it confused me for a while, but I see no need for you to be, should it ever come up.)
The first portion of this true first episode serves as an introduction to the characters and their first case, as chronicled in “A Fairy in the Flat†and “A Pot of Tea.†Fairly rich (I am assuming) and bored, the married couple are delighted with the opportunity to take over the International Detective Agency. (It may be that Tuppence is the more delighted of the two.) Their first case is a slam dunk (in today’s terminology), as they are hired by a young man of the upper class whose sweetheart, a shop girl, has gone missing. I will not tell you why it is a slam dunk, though.
The titular tale is more of a challenge, as it involves a valuable pink pearl which has disappeared after some careless handling of it during a dinner party, which means, luckily for the viewer, lots of suspects, including the servants and other staff, all of whom need questioning as to who was where and when. I didn’t think the showing was quite fair to the viewer, though; perhaps the original story was better in this regard.
The setting is bright and cheerful, and the dialogue very witty. As it is too long since I have read the books, and then only N or M? within the last ten years, I cannot tell you how well Francesca Annis and James Warwick fit their roles. N or M? was published some twelve years after the story collection, so of course it is natural that I pictured them that many years older.
One thing I do remember about the books is that each story in its telling parodied another of Ms Christie’s contemporary authors at the time. “Pearl,†for example, used R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke as a model for the pair to emulate. That particular aspect of the stories seems to have been dropped from this particular television version.
April 3rd, 2021 at 12:09 am
‘Tommy and Tuppence’ was a beautiful BBC series as so many of the same circa, always were. Not in quite the same pitch of exquisite stuff like ‘Brideshead Revisited’ or ‘Reilly’ (my #1 fave) but that’s only due to a difference in genre. Otherwise: wardrobes, hairstyles, jewelry, writing, acting, completely consistent in execution and panache.
Photogenic, confident, stage-trained actors, sensitive editing/pacing, intelligent tending to every production nuance. The Brits are simply masters of theater production. I hope it always remains so.
T&T were contemporary to Suchet in ‘Poirot’ and Brett in ‘Sherlock Holmes’ as I recall. All these shows had wonderful guest appearances from other BBC regulars; always making it a ‘family affair’. Hesitate to say it, but one could probably link hundreds of American TV shows to this same lively format. ‘Moonlighting’; ‘Hot Shots’; ‘Hart to Hart’; ‘Silk Stalkings’; innumerable others. Does it all come from one source, such as Hammett? I wouldn’t dare to say. But Tommy/Tuppence is a fine example of this style.
I remember bits of the T/T dialogue to this day. The only thing lacking in comparison to Loy/Powell was the meager amount of boozing. Not enough booze by half.
April 3rd, 2021 at 1:33 am
I’ve always had a fondness for Tommy and Tuppence and this bright series, and recall it fondly, though I seem to recall them being broke (in the rather genteel sense of some P. G. Wodehouse heroes) for much of it rather than rich.
The only problem between the series and the originals was that the book had a gimmick of every case having the pair as being involved in a different case in the style of another mystery writer. Obviously modern viewers weren’t going to get that especially when the mystery in question was Valentine Williams Clubfoot and the detectives in question as obscure as Desmond and Francis Okewood.
Unlike most sleuths the Beresford’s aged fairly naturally over time. I can’t swear they are exactly parallel but they seemed to always be the same age as Christie when she wrote about them though whether that was the design when she started I don’t know.
April 3rd, 2021 at 6:55 am
This series is terrific. As is the original story collection by Christie.
The characters on TV, while close to the book, have their differences.
In the books, Tuppence is more sensible and common sensical. She is the voice of a certain kind of practicality.
The books stress Tommy being stalwart and brave, a bit more.
I don’t think any of these changes hurt the series at all.
Also, film being a visual medium, the TV characters’ clothes are spectacular, in a way that has no equivalent in Christie.
I think Agatha Christie was a teetotaler. You are not going to find endless booze a la THE THIN MAN in her tales. This is just fine with me too.
While PARTNERS IN CRIME appeared in book form in 1929, nearly all the stories in it were published in magazines in 1924.
Based on a single reading and viewing, I found the novel and film THE SECRET ADVERSARY are much inferior to PARTNERS IN CRIME.
April 3rd, 2021 at 11:26 am
Not a word written about Francesca Annis? A great beauty and estimable talent, her teaming with Robson Green and Michael Kitchen in Reckless should have been enough to engrave her on all our hearts, and other parts of the anatomy. Meanwhile, these shows with James Warwick are to be treasured. Well, I do that.
See them all.
April 3rd, 2021 at 12:19 pm
Chronologically there is a bit of a problem with the ages of Tommy and Tuppence’s children, who grow up far too fast.
Even when I first read the stories, back in the 60s, I suspect many readers would not have heard of many of the fictional sleuths that they parody. I had heard of most of them (through having read Sayers’ anthologies “Detection Mystery Horror”) but there were still some I didn’t recognise, although I don’t remember it worrying me. The fact that they take off Poirot himself in the last part must have been quite daring at the time!
July 22nd, 2021 at 11:10 am
Belatedly (very):
I’m just back from checking my DVD Wall.
Starting with The Secret Adversary, and continuing through the whole Partners In Crime series, this was a production of London Weekend Television (LWT).
That was an ITV licensee – not the BBC.
For years now, just about every American who writes up British TV of any sort invariably gives credit to The Beeb, as if there is no other supplier.
Once upon a time, I caught no less than Roger Ebert making this mistake, and was foolish enough to call him on it.
His facile response was to airily state that ” … most Americans think it’s all BBC anyway …” (quote approximate).
For the record, two other franchises mentioned here, David Suchet’s Poirot and Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes, were also ITV series, both from Granada TV.
I know that I shouldn’t let this annoy me this way, but it does …
Sorry about that.
July 22nd, 2021 at 4:13 pm
I like getting things correct, too. I don’t know why I originally had the BBC as producing this series, but I’ve made the change. Thanks, Mike!