On Sunday I began watching Mystery, because, well, I like Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. (Fans of Meriadoc Brandybuck should know that a rather younger Dominic Monaghan appears in all the episodes.) However, this past Sunday, Hetty was playing second and Miss Marple was first. I watched the Miss Marple as well.
Damn you Agatha Christie! Why, why, did you have to write such great mysetery stories that are just too long to fit into an hour? Why must they always be two hours and therefore require two shows? Why can't Poirot get everyone into the drawing room thirty minutes faster? Why must Miss Marple finish knitting the entire sock before she talks?
So, I'm booked for eight o clock next Sunday to find out who killed Derek Jacobi (I can't remember what his character name is) in Murder at the Vicarage. I know it can't have been the young painter, or his mistress (Jacobi's wife) because they were both in the shed when the gun went off, and besides, they both confess anyway. I think the two French researchers are a red herring although the man was going on a rather peculiar walk.
I know the time of death is actually much earlier than described because it has been indicated at least twice that the clock in the vicar's office is wrong. I shouldn't wonder if it was Mary, the servant, but that's a bit too obvious. It would be really interesting if it were the vicar's wife, because the vicar is so taken with her, but I think she was in London when Jacobi was shot.
A mystery story is no fun unless the reader has everything they need to put the clues together. That's one of the things that bothered me when I read The Phantom of the Opera (read, mind you). The fellow tried to put it together with a bit of mystery, but at the same time doesn't allow the Persian to tell us everything. It seems to do a lot of By The Way You Didn't Know This.
Unlike Douglas Adams who gives you everything but convinces you none of it is important.
Mystery and fright and real suspense are so lacking in theatre right now. I think it would be great if the old trick of doing staged sceances were to come back into style. Houdini proved time and time again that such things are theatrically and magically possible to recreate, and I think it would be interesting to tread that line again.
Unfortunately, theatres are concerned about losing their audiences and so want to keep them feeling nice and safe and detached. I think this is why people go to the movies, to feel safe. Theatre ought to have a little bit of danger other than the fact that it's live. To take audiences on a trip a little closer to reality, but still leave them safe and sound at all times would be really worth the forty bucks they paid for the ticket, wouldn't it?