London — It’s 1955. The great detective Attika Spund is heading to her Avon, the picturesque fictional Suffolk village of Saxbeon, to investigate a murder. Pünd smiles slightly and nods as the bright red MG sports car drives by. This car is driven by Susan Ryland, who lives in an entirely different world: the present. And she’s back from Sucksby. She was looking for the missing final chapter of a book in which Pundo solves crimes.
Messed up? This is his one of many meta moments in “Magpie Murders,” a Russian puppet murder mystery that sets a fictional 1950s detective story within a contemporary investigation of the author’s death. In a series of six parts, Debuts in the US on PBS’ Masterpiece on Sundayis based on the novel of the same name by Anthony Horowitz and has been adapted for television.
“The plot is so detailed and cleverly constructed that only Anthony was able to take it apart and put it back together,” she said, set to appear as Princess Margaret in the new season of “The Crown.” Yes, the new movie Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. In “Magpie Murders,” Manville stars as Susan. Clover Her Books is a small publishing house with one starred author, Atticus Pund, the unlikable Alan Conway (Conleth Hill) who has become famous and rich with her series.
Conway takes us to the fictional world of the 1950s, providing the latest pund novel Susan has started reading, complete with an Agatha Christie-esque scenario. “There is no place more dangerous than an English village,” Conway happily writes at the beginning of Episode Two.
“It’s the concept of a fictional detective investigating crime in the quiet English countryside of the 1950s, with roses and chintz underneath and hate swirling around!” Greek-Jewish concentration camp survivor said Tim McMullan, who plays Pund, a German refugee.
However, Susan realizes that the last chapter of Conway’s book is missing. “Is there anything more useless than a whodunnit without an ending?” she cries furiously. And the author is found dead. Did he jump from the mansion’s tower, or — tongue firmly in his cheek, as asked by Susan’s boyfriend Andreas (Alexandros Logothetis) — was he pushed?
Susan begins her investigation while looking for the missing chapter. Soon she and Pundo are discussing the case he is investigating in Conway’s novel, as well as the missing chapter and the mystery of Conway’s death, presumably in her imagination.
The series was created by Chris Bennion A laudatory review in The Telegraph After the show aired in the UK, it’s “a hooda unit about a hooda unit within a hooda unit”.
In a video interview, Horowitz, best known for his Alex Rider teenage spy novels, but also a prolific television screenwriter (“The War of the Foyles,” “Midsommar Murders”) said he hadn’t thought about adapting the book for television until 1999. Producer Jill Green suggested it.
“It was a very complicated task,” he said. “In this book he has two worlds, two time zones (imaginary and real), and there are multiple suspects in both worlds. It’s a labyrinth. The challenge is to make it easier for the viewer to understand. That was it.”
In the novel, the 1955 story first appears, after which the story switches to the modern time frame. Greene feels strongly that television should interweave stories, and that Susan’s story should be “more complex and personal.”
Horowitz said it required “a lot of drafts.” After Hill was cast for the role, he expanded on Conway’s character (“He’s so mean and funny”) and made new history for Susan. “Once we had an actress like Leslie, it was clear that she had to have a whole story,” he said. It’s great to have women of a fulfilled age.”
According to him, a major breakthrough was the idea of having many of the actors appear in both time slots. will be Militant detective Inspector Locke (Daniel Mays) is Inspector Chubb in the 1950s scenario. Lawyer Sajid Khan (Sanjeev Kohli) is a village doctor. And Alan’s beleaguered sister, Claire (Pippa Heywood), is also the ill-fated sister of Sir Magnus Pie, who is murdered in his novel.
“It makes perfect sense because part of the plot is that Alan puts people he knows, who are barely disguised, into his book and creates a huge amount of resentment,” Horowitz says. I got
Kohli said he was “never asked to do anything like that” before playing two characters from different centuries in the same show. “It’s very nice to be able to introduce you to your range,” he said. would have been.”
At the same time, Mr. Mays said that the actors made connections between characters to show how Conway “extended or embellished, almost unkindly, what he perceived to be their personalities.” I had to show
Peter Kataneo (“The Full Monty”), who directed the series, said the double casting “made the director’s heart shine”. Here we played with two worlds and had some great decorations that have a unique look yet feel like a coherent whole. ”
The difference between the two timeframes is partly due to the type of camera lens used. “A lot of the Golden Age of Crime TV can end up being a bit of a box of chocolates,” he says Cattaneo. “We looked at Hitchcock and tried to give it a colorful, old-school grade without feeling flashy.” He said the modern world of the series feels cleaner.
Manville said she was drawn to Susan’s vitality and independence of spirit. “She doesn’t play according to what society thinks the rules should be,” she said. has chosen never to marry or have children, loves her job, is very stylish, and like Princess Margaret and Mrs. Harris, many of the things I do are far from me, but Susan’s willingness and wit made me and my voice feel closer.”
As Pund, McMullan “could be a little closer to another famous fictional detective of the era” and tried to avoid “mannerism and props”. , I wanted him to be a gentle character who was un-German, was in a labor camp, and had a very empathetic perspective on the human condition.
A dreamy exchange with Susan forges a subtle emotional connection as the mutual investigation progresses.
“I’m a strong believer in detectives being outsiders,” said Horowitz. “They are dark knights who came out of nowhere and their job is to heal the community and then leave.” He added that Pünd has an extra layer to the idea.
“He’s very aware that he’s fictional,” said Horowitz. “He knows he’s gone when you turn the last page.”