book I couldn't make much more of an opinion about his role.

Then we have Russ Abbott playing a chief inspector that is shortly due to retire but somehow Miss Marple goads him into taking an active part in looking into the case. A good comedian he might be (not my personal opinion) but he played the role of police official rather too farcically for my liking. Martin Kemp, Sarah Parish, Dawn French and Paul McGann played a group of travelling performers called The Funnybones - 4 decent enough TV actors but there just wasn't enough time for their characters to be developed enough for them to make much of an impact (although I always enjoy watching the yummy Martin Kemp on screen). Anna-Louise Plowman played Helen Marsden in the flashback scenes and she was beguiling enough in the role to make you believe why so many men fell for her. Phil Davis played Dr Kennedy but having seen him in other roles I didn't feel he gave this role his all and I know he is capable of much more. I can't say much about why I felt he underperformed as that would give away a major part of the story but again his character was different in the film compared to the book and I felt it was the worst change of story and the most confusing. A few other actors who appeared in the film deserve a quick mention such as Una Stubbs, Geraldine Chaplin (yes Charlie Chaplin's daughter), Julian Wadham and Peter Serfinowicz. None of these characters had much screen time but like the members of The Funnybones their characters could have been more developed.

The film runs for about 1 hour 20 minutes which I felt could have been longer for a few of the characters to be more well developed. As it is, with such a large cast, it seemed a waste to have some big names and not fully utilise their abilities.

If I were to rate the film as an overall film not having known the original story I would rate it as a generous 4 out of 5. But as I have read the book and it's one of my favorites I'd rate the film as 3 out of 5 mostly because it confused me so much with such drastic changes in the story.

If you're a diehard Christie fan and enjoyed Sleeping Murder the book you might find yourself getting very frustrated at the differences between that and this TV film. But if you watch it with new eyes not knowing the original story and I think you'll find this quite an enjoyable film.

P.S. if you are going to watch the film, watch out for a rather bizarre scene at the end of the film when the Erskines and Fanes are sat down at a meal together, it made me chuckle even though it was very unexpected.

Learn more about this author, Anony Mili.
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