Agatha Christie's Marple Greenshaw's Folly (2004–2013) Online

Jane Marple comes to the assistance of Louisa and her young son Archie, desperately escaping her violent husband Philip. Jane takes them away to the secluded home of friend of Katherine Greenshaw, where Louisa adopts the post of Secretary. Greenshaw's Folly soon becomes the scene of three deaths, guest Horace Bindler, Cracken the Butler, and Katherine Greenshaw herself, it falls on Jane Marple to unravel the mystery alongside who knows of Miss Marple by her formidable reputation.

The Marple series ended very strongly I thought, the previous few episodes were very strong, as was this one, only Endless Night was a little short of the mark.

Some wonderful performances, Julia McKenzie made a great fist with the lead role, a mix of softness and toughness, she played it brilliantly. Fiona Shaw is a tremendously good actress, so charismatic and wonderfully eccentric, she's awesome as Katherine.

Two stories are told, unravelling and intertwining at the end, it's extremely well done, and the way it was written it could almost have been written as a story for Jane Marple, her involvement seems natural, one of the better non Marple stories that was adapted.

An intelligent, intriguing mystery, beautifully produced and well acted, little to fault. 9/10

Miss Marple helps out an abused mother and son in "Greenshaw's Folly," from Season 6 of the Miss Marple series.

Louisa Oxley and her little boy, Archie, appear on Miss Marple's doorstep one night; Louisa is on the run from her abusive husband. Marple brings them to her friend, Katherine Greenshaw, who owns a huge estate, known as Greenshaw's Folly. Katherine is a botanist and needs the help of a secretary, so she hires Louisa.

Katherine's butler Walter is there, as well as her nephew, an actor, Nat Fletcher, and the gardener, Alfred, who takes a shine to both mother and son.

Walter falls and is killed; and then a guest at the house, Horace Bindler, disappears. Miss Marple, who is helping out at the orphanage, doesn't like the atmosphere and believes something is wrong. Then Miss Greenshaw herself meets with an untimely end.

There are secrets to be uncovered and plenty of suspicious characters in this adaptation of two Christie stories. The atmosphere is great, as is the acting. Julia McKenzie is an excellent Marple, and one of England's finest actresses, Fiona Shaw, plays Miss Greenshaw.

A couple of subplots could have been left out, but on the whole, it's an intriguing story and good episode.

Agatha Christie has been one of my favourite authors for nearly 10 years now, and while I prefer Poirot as a detective the Miss Marple novels and stories still make for great reads, especially A Murder is Announced and Sleeping Murder. Of the actresses playing Miss Marple, the definitive one to me will always be Joan Hickson, who is like Miss Marple come to life, her adaptations are all very good to great with They Do It With Mirrors being the only slightly disappointing one. Margaret Rutherford I also liked very much as the character and her films were very entertaining, Angela Lansbury did a nice job if a little on the young side for Miss Marple and Geraldine McEwen(she has grown on me as Miss Marple) on the whole was good but I wasn't taken by Helen Hayes.

Julia McKenzie here and in her other adaptations is terrific as Miss Marple, for me the best since Hickson. Hers is more agile and less shrewd but still charming, remarkably well-grounded and intelligent with an endearing twinkle about her. Whereas the BBC Miss Marple series with Hickson was generally consistent, the ITV Marple series starting with McEwen and now with McKenzie isn't so much. There are some great ones like The Blue Geranium, A Pocket Full of Rye and The Mirror Crack'd and I did like A Murder is Announced, Murder At the Vicarage and The Moving Finger too. But there have been some stinkers too like At Bertram's Hotel, A Sittaford Mystery, Why Didn't They Ask Evans and Nemesis and Sleeping Murder, Ordeal of Innocence, Body in the Library(quite good actually until the ending) and The Secret of Chimneys disappointed also. Greenshaw's Folly was one of the middling ones along with Murder is Easy, They Do it With Mirrors, The Pale Horse and Towards Zero. It has many good merits but did have some things that didn't work quite so well, compared to the excellent A Caribbean Mystery also it was a slight disappointment.

Starting with what I didn't much care for, there were stretches particularly in the middle where it did feel too padded out and while the spousal abuse and child experimentations plot points were interesting they-much more the latter than the former though-did convolute the story(I did have to rewind the ending more than once to completely get it) and while it was a quite foreboding story and atmosphere anyway maybe they did have too much of a sinister overtone and darkened the storytelling too much. Some will disagree but this was just something that I felt. Joanna David is also rather wasted despite having a character and scene holding a vital clue, people having to ask whether she was actually in the adaptation on and outside of IMDb and the internet is not a good sign, and it is a shame because she is a good actress.

However, it is a very well made adaptation. The house looks splendid and the very ideal sort of house where dark secrets would be kept, while the sumptuous scenery, haunting lighting and professional photography help give an evocative and atmospheric visual look. The music is well-composed and fitting, more subtle and suited to the atmosphere I feel than most of the McEwen Marple adaptations. The dialogue does get confused in the final solution but on the whole it is thoughtfully written and does its best to have some fidelity to Agatha Christie's style. The story is two short stories(interesting but not classic stuff, the Greenshaw's Folly story doesn't have an extraordinary amount to it and Miss Marple seems to solve the case just like that with not many if any clues) combined in one big one, and on the most part the adaptation does a noble job at keeping the storytelling interesting and even with the additional plot points that didn't work as well as they could have done elements of the two stories are there and easy to spot. The Gothic and foreboding dark secrets atmosphere is very well evoked, and the first half-hour and build ups to the murders do have tension and suspense. It does drag though after the second murder and the final solution is one that may need a couple of re-watches.

The cast are on top form though, apart from the waste of Joanna David(Vic Reeves' role is also quite brief but long enough to not be a waste in the same way). Julia McKenzie is terrific and her scenes with Bobby Smalldridge and Kimberley Nixon, both also very convincing, are beautifully played. In support, Fiona Shaw comes off best in a firm but also very touching performance, and Julia Sawalha is on fine form also as Miss Cresswell. Robert Glenister is highly believable playing a nervous ferret-like character that is also in a downward spiral, a role that fits very well within the story. John Gordon Sinclair fills the Inspector, one who tries to solve the murders asap and is seemingly increasingly exasperated at Miss Marple's involvement, excellently. All in all, quite good but could have been better. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Although my initial joy at seeing Vic Reeves in this film was rather dampened by the plot development that saw him removed within the first 10 minutes, generally I found this Marple to be a very engaging and well paced mystery. Comprised of two short stories from Christie (neither of which I have read), the plot here is mostly pretty lean and consistently delivered. We start with an accident to draw the interest early on and then we develop character sand backgrounds while other events occur. Mostly it is an effective piece of writing as it allowed the usual Marple content of gently exploring people but not at the expense of the mystery appearing to sag, but rather it kept things going at a good pace.

With the combination of two stories this isn't totally true since some of the detail could have been done without (Archie's father in particular was unnecessary) but generally everything has a good flow to it. The direction is good too. The return to the English drawing room from the color of the Caribean in the previous film wasn't jarring at all because the location did not mean a dry film, instead it is well filmed for the character of the place but it is not silent, dry or still as such a place can often appear. The cast also do a great job. McKenzie still feels a little too involved and spritely for my tastes but she is OK still. Sawalha, Reeves, Shaw, Sinclair and others all give good turns and I liked that nobody overacted in the pantomime way some have in this series, nor did they think they were playing anything of great import and stiffen up. Generally everyone pitched their performances really well.

Overall, an enjoyable and engaging Marple outing with a good plot that is well paced and delivered.

Miss Marple comes to the aid of Louisa Oxley and her young son, Archie. They end up at Greenshaw's Folly, an estate owned by a friend of Miss Marple, Katherine Greenshaw. However, their stay there is hardly uneventful. Soon after their arrival, the long-serving butler dies after falling off a ladder. Miss Marple suspects that it may not be an accident but the police are not impressed. Then Ms Greenshaw dies too, from an arrow through the neck. Now the police are interested...

The usual blandness of Miss Marple offset to a degree by an interesting sub-plot or two. Here the main offset is Archie, a curious, observant, intelligent and engaging child. Him and his mother make for an island of innocence in a house of trouble.

The mystery itself isn't too complex. Some aspects of it are easy to see through. Not particularly intriguing but it will do.

This episode is a combination of two of Agatha Christie's short stories both featuring Miss Marple (here played by Julia McKenzie). It honestly does a very good job of combining them as I was frequently not sure what came from which story, and the solution worked well. There is technically nothing wrong with this mystery. It's just not that special in the series. The tricks played with the audience are fairly standard. A living person impersonating someone already dead to change the time of death, various illegitimate children. All of these have been done better in other Christie's. What saves it though from the ordinary are the actors. The Marple series always has quite star-studded casts, but they often risk having several cast members hamming it up (Simon Callow in "Body in the Library", Danny Webb in "At Bertram's", Warren Clarke in "Evans"), but they all perform very well here. Fiona Shaw is a fantastic actress, she inhabits the eccentric, sympathetic Miss Greenshaw quite well. Sam Reid (who sounds like he's a member of the Fox family) and Kimberly Nixon also impress. I hadn't heard of Vic Reeves (or Jim Moir as he is called in the opening credits) before, but I understand he was quite good. The standout however is Bobby Smalldridge. That kid can really act. One of the best child actors I've ever seen. All in all, a solidly enjoyable way to spend an evening.

Out of the three most recent Marple films (all made in 2013), I would rank "Greenshaw's Folly" last: it lacks the exotic glamor of "Caribbean Mystery" or the psychological intensity and unusual storytelling devices of "Endless Night". As it is based on two short stories by Christie, it is padded with a number of subplots that have little or nothing to do with the main story. And there is a key revelation at the end which does not ring true, because either one or the other of the two cast members concerned have been miscast (from an age point of view; there is nothing wrong with their acting). It's still a watchable film, the Greenshaw House is magnificent and the killing methods are quite original, but as an entry in the "Marple" series, it's pretty middle-of-the-road. **1/2 out of 4.

Joan Hickson is my epitome of Miss Marple--- although Helen Hayes was also fabulous. The newer actresses are quite good--- but I READ. Miss Marple should drive my crazy, and Hicksion did! Those mental leaps that I couldn't predict; amazing. The police officers admitting that she annoys them, BUT she turns out to be correct. Fantastic! Also, Hickson was the correct AGE for the character.( Yes, that does matter! ) There was a movie about an actress who was exposed to measles when she was pregnant; the actress was excellent, but I need to check for the name! I am pleased when I can solve mysteries, BUT I require that I have to THINK to solve them! ( One of the reasons respect Christie.)