Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears

Cast: Essie Davis, Miriam Margolyes, Ashleigh Cummings

Everybody’s favourite detective is back and this time she’s unravelling a mystery so big it demands to be told on the cinema screen. Moving on from being just a hit television program beloved by audiences young and old, Miss Phryne Fisher (Essie Davis) is taking her investigative skills and her beautiful outfits to the Middle East to solve a crime on motorbike and on camel.

There are missing jewels and ancient curses and, of course, some wonderful hats. The film’s makers have utilised the shimmering scale of the big screen to their advantage – more so than the recent Downton Abbey movie, which was more like an extended episode of the television series than something truly outside of the box.

Davis is a delight as always as the intuitive Miss Fisher and her feminist streak is even more appropriate in 2020. Surely even those who’ve never seen the series will be charmed.