What would Agatha say?
First, a new ending ... now sweary BBC show turns killer into a rapist as well!
‘All this swearing and misery’
LAST week Agatha Christie fans reacted to the BBC’s foulmouthed adaptation of Ordeal By Innocence by saying the author would be ‘turning in her grave’.
And, as with any whodunnit, there was another dramatic twist in last night’s finale – and this one was even more unwelcome.
Not only did the episode deviate from Miss Christie’s genteel novel by being filled with sex, but the killer was turned into a rapist and a paedophile.
Christie devotees were already infuriated that the three-part BBC 1 series changed the identity of the character who murdered the aristocratic matriarch in the plot. In the 1958 novel, Rachel Argyll’s killer is revealed to be Kirsten the maid.
She was persuaded to kill by her lover Jack, who is one of Mr and Mrs Argyll’s adopted sons. But in the modern retelling, the father, Leo Argyll, kills his wife, played by Anna Chancellor, when she threatens to divorce him after finding him in bed with his assistant.
As well as turning the patriarch of the household, played by Bill Nighy, into the killer, writer Sarah Phelps also makes him a sex-obsessed paedophile.
Jack, who was framed for the murder, discovers he is the son of Kirsten, played by Morven Christie, who was raped by Mr Argyll when she was 15.
The final confrontation between Jack and Mr Argyll is filled with graphic language. Revealing his father to be a paedophile who raped Kirsten, Jack – played by Anthony Boyle – says: ‘I’ve worked it out, she was 15, little girl straight out of summer home, little girl with nothing. She told us once it was the first time she’d had a room of her own, and who walks into it? You with your **** in your hand.’
In another shocking scene, Mr Argyll is shown having sex with his secretary Gwenda Vaughan, played by Alice Eve.
And whereas Miss Christie neatly ties up the loose ends in her novel, in the BBC adaptation, which started on April 1, the final scenes show Mr Argyll screaming after Kirsten locks him in the bunker of the grand house.
Viewers last night slammed the programme, claiming Miss Christie would be ‘aghast’ had she been alive today. One wrote: ‘Christie wrote brilliant books without f****** etc – totally rewriting her books is a disgrace.’
Another said: ‘ Insipid drivel. I hope Agatha Christie haunts them all in their sleep.’ Others claimed the plot had been ‘butchered’ and ‘trashed’ by the broadcaster.
Last week viewers were stunned to see characters using explicit language and making crude sexual remarks despite the era’s genteel image. In the second episode which was down 1.4million viewers from the first, Tina Argyll, played by Crystal Clarke, was seen shouting ‘f*** off’ at a group of men who harassed her on the street. Later Jack boasted he’d been ‘f******’ family friend Lydia Gould and simulated a sexual act with his finger.
One viewer said: ‘Agatha Christie would be turning in her grave at all this swearing and misery.’
In interviews ahead of the programme, Miss Phelps said she didn’t ‘give a b******s’ about offending people by editing the storyline.