Acclaimed actress Julia McKenzie plays Miss Jane Marple, an elderly resident of the small English village of St. Mary Mead. With her tweed two-pieces and penchant for knitting, the unassuming Miss Marple is certainly not your average detective. However, her sharp wit and shrewd understanding of human nature makes her a formidable force against any criminal who comes in her way...

Series Five of Marple is the second in which Julia McKenzie has portrayed Miss Marple. The episodes were originally broadcast between August 2010 and January 2011.

The Pale Horse opens with a dying woman giving her last confession to a Catholic priest (Nicholas Parsons). She also imparts to him a list of names as well as a terrible secret. The priest is also a friend of Miss Marple and send her a letter, outlining his concerns and that he wishes to talk to her in length about what he's discovered. However before he can do so he is killed. Miss Marple sets about getting to the bottom of the mystery and soon discovers that the trail leads to a quiet country pub in the middle of nowhere, a pub called The Pale Horse.

The Secret of Chimneys sees Miss Marple staying at the Chimneys stately home, which is playing host to a distinguished foreign dignitary. In the night everyone awakens when they hear a gunshot. They find the dignitary near death. He dies soon afterwards and it appears to be a fairly straightforward case as the apparent killer is found at the scene of the crime, having broken into the grounds. However, Miss Marple is convinced all is not as it seems.

The Blue Geranium sees Miss Marple suddenly solving a crime she couldn't piece together at the time. However, it's almost a little too late as the wrong man is about to hang for a crime he didn't commit. Miss Marple must convince her old friend Sir Henry Clithering that they must stop the trial.

The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side sees a famous Hollywood actress (Lindsay Duncan) moving to St. Mary Mead. When she hosts a drinks reception one of the guests ends up dead, poisoned by her drink. It soon appears that the poison was meant for the actress. But with Miss Marple on the case it's only a matter of time before the true criminal is caught.

The only one of these tales that originally featured Miss Marple when Agatha Christie penned them is The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. In addition The Blue Geranium is a short story in The Thirteen Problems novel. Christie's hardcore fan base may find this an unforgivable sin, but casual drama fans will probably not notice. Personally I thought it was interesting to see how the writers had woven Miss Marple into the narrative. Although some are better handled than others. For example, she hardly appears to do anything in The Secret of Chimneys, she takes a very obvious background role in this tale.

As you'd expect from this series there's an impressive list of guest stars including Nicholas Parsons, Pauline Collins, Holly Valance, Nigel Planer, Holly Willoughby, Edward Fox, Dervla Kirwan, Michelle Collins, Donald Sinden, Sharon Small, Toby Stephens, Lindsay Duncan, Joanna Lumley, Hugh Bonneville, Caroline Quentin, Michele Dotrice and Will Young.

The only extra is a feature entitled Behind the Scenes on Series 5 (22 min, 18 sec) which interviews several of the actors that appear in this series about the appeal of Marple and also give a quick run through each episode. While interesting, it's nothing that informative.

8

Darren Rea