I used to love this series... but now I find it desperately mannered. Of the two leads, James Warwick has worn the best. (He went to Canada and became a director to avoid spending the rest of his life playing bright young things.) He also does a very good job of reading the stories in audiobook form. Francesca Annis is a lovely woman and a good actress, but her directors seem to think that everyone in the 20s spent their time posing around and being arch and brittle. Also, Tommy and Tuppence weren't bright young things - they had both served in the war, Tommy as a soldier and Tuppence as a nurse. (As did Agatha Christie.) The stories were intended as spoofs of well-known mystery writers of the day: the duo decide to imitate a different fictional detective for each case. ("This isn't a Father Brown type of crime!") This is largely lost in the TV version. I just started to watch the Sunningdale Mystery, intended as a spoof of a tec called "the old man in the corner". Apparently he sat in an ABC teashop, eating buns and drinking milk while solving crimes (and playing cat's cradle). In the TV version, as in the book, Tuppence drags Tommy to the teashop and cancels his order for a plate of ham, substituting a bun and a glass of milk. In the book, he then realises which detective he is meant to be; on the screen, no reason is given for this imposed change of diet. Watch the Miss Marples with Joan Hickson instead!
Review of Partners in Crime
