Christie, Agatha: Murder is Announced, A (radio play)

The announcement in Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced is in a local paper; Miss Marple is vacationing in the area, reads the paper, and slightly knows the young man who ends up dead at the appointed time and place, so of course she looks into matters. I suspected the murderer in this quite early, and it was crystal-clear by the fourth of five radio episodes, so the plot isn’t the most interesting part of this. Instead, I was interested by two social things, the first of which was the heavy emphasis on the social upheaval wrought by WWII and the way that long-standing community ties didn’t exist any more; it seemed a historical window on British anxieties. The other thing was of interest only because it would have gone right over my head as a kid: Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd live together in the neighborhood and are almost over-the-top in their butch-femme roles; the text doesn’t say they’re lovers, because I don’t think Christie novels do that, but it seems a very strong possibility.

A note on the radio adaptation: Mitzi, the Eastern European refugee, would probably be annoying enough on paper, but she’s appalling out loud.

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