by Sun Meilan

Created on: July 13, 2009

After having lived in India all her life, Gwenda Halliday moves to England to find a house for her and her husband-to-be to move into after their marriage. She finds the perfect house in a seaside resort called Dillmouth. However, shortly after having moved in, strange things begin to happen. She requests that a door be knocked through, only to discover that there originally had been a door there. Then she decides on a certain wallpaper for the nursery, only to discover that a previously unopened cupboard was decorated in exactly that wallpaper. She also sees the vision of a dead woman in the hall. As her fiance is still in India, he requests that Hugh Hornbeam, a colleague, helps Gwenda find out what is going on. Hugh calls in Miss Marple.

Miss Marple suspects that Gwenda has previously been in the house, and when they check, it seems that Gwenda did live there for a while with her father after the death of her mother in India. Her father had been about to marry again, to a woman called Helen, but Helen disappeared before the wedding. Miss Marple suspects that Helen was murdered and that it is her body that Gwenda has seen in the hall. Slowly, they piece the story together, with the help of Gwenda's uncle James. Did Gwenda's father kill Helen? Or was it one of the theatre group with which she was involved?

Sleeping Murder is my favourite Agatha Christie story of all time. It is cleverly written and is completely believable. What a pity the screenwriter, Stephen Churchett, decided to re-write large sections of the story, which made it into something little more than a farce. The main differences are the addition of the theatre group, which doesn't exist in the book, although some of the characters in it are in the book but with different backgrounds. Another is that Gwenda is already married in the book and so the ridiculous attraction between her and Hugh does not happen. Also Gwenda's Uncle James is not a blood relation of Gwenda at all in the book, unlike in this film - he is simply the brother of Helen. I really cannot see what the changes that the director and screenwriter have made have brought to this story and it is largely for this reason that I did not enjoy this film as much as I would usually.

I always feel quite sorry for Geraldine McKewan. As the latest Miss Marple, she has had to follow in the footsteps of the much-loved Joan Hickson; no easy feat. I personally think she is good as Miss Marple. As we have discovered in previous episodes, her

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