Rex Fortescue, a prominent London financier whose business reportedly is on the verge of bankruptcy, is hardly the Willy Loman ideal: Obviously not well-liked, he is not even slightly liked.
His sister-in-law characterizes him as ”a horrid man.” His household head of staff paints him as ”odious.” His own son sees him as ”a bit of a social climber–social steeplejack, actually,” adding, ”The governor is a bit of an old crook–not a swindler, but he knows how to put over a fast one.” And when Fortescue dies of poisoning, his housekeeper sniffs, ”It`s a stain gone. The world`s a cleaner place today.”
Rex Fortescue is a prime character, and Victim No. 1, in ”Agatha Christie`s Miss Marple: A Pocketful of Rye,” a two-hour entry on PBS`
”Mystery!” which will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Thursday on WTTW-Ch. 11, complete with a rambling country estate, an assemblage of suspects and even a butler named Crump.
The victim (played by Timothy West) turns out to have been put away with a rare poison. What`s more, it is discovered there is a handful of rye seed found in his pocket–prompting the local press to speculate that it was a ritual murder, some kind of an ancient fertility rite.
The possible perpetrators include his young, beautiful, gold-digging second wife (Stacey Dorning), a onetime manicurist from Brighton, and her handsome lover (Martyn Stanbridge, and the deceased`s two sons, who are busily engaged in sibling skirmishes, the older, straight-laced son, tight-fisted Percival (Clive Merrison), works for the family business and is known to his brother as ”Percy the Pious,” and the playboy prodigal, Lance (Peter Davison), who has ”married well” and, as someone also notes, is ”something of a tearaway.”
Also on hand are the chunky, skittish, bumbling parlor maid (Annette Badland); the shrewd, hyper-efficient head of the household staff (Selina Cadell); the older brother`s silent and strange wife (Rachel Bell) who stands to inherit 40,000 pounds; and the dead man`s sister-in-law by his first marriage (Fabia Drake, fondly remembered as Mabel Layton in ”The Jewel in the Crown”), who is ”addicted to the Scriptures” and rarely leaves her room, regarding the rest of the house as ”a den of iniquity.”
Enter, of course, Jane Marple (Joan Hickson), the octogenarian, spinster sleuth who pops over from her home in St. Mary Mead to scrutinize what turns out to be a series of murders. Her method: analyzing the words to the nursery rhyme, starting with the ”king” (i.e., Rex) in his counting house and moving along to ”the queen” in the parlor, eating bread and honey. (Christie had a propensity for using the children`s genre, as reflected in some her other titles: ”One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” and ”Hickory, Dickory, Death.”) Before long, sardonic Det. Inspector Neele of Scotland Yard (Tom Wilkinson) is saying, quite justifiably, ”I`m beginning to wonder who`s in charge of this case.”
Directed by Guy Slater and adapted by T.R. Bowen, it is a stylish, witty, peppy work, highlighted by a first-rate supporting cast and a bright performance by the 80-year-old Hickson, a longtime British character actress who reprises the role she has played so well on such previous Christie ventures as ”The Moving Finger.”
The consummate butt-insky, her Miss Marple is wispy-voiced, crisply calculating and decidedly off-putting in her general demeanor. With her frumpy hats and sensible shoes–stereotype time here–she looks as if she should be out on the windswept beaches, binoculars and Peterson guide in hand, stalking some elusive sandpiper.