MURDER MYSTERY IS EASY FOR MORFYDD
IT’S 1954 and Luke Fitzwilliam is on a train to London when he’s asked by an older woman, Miss Pinkerton, what time Scotland Yard closes. She needs to report “murder” – a killer is on the loose in her sleepy English village of Wychwood under Ashe.
It’s a strange conversation starter, but things get stranger when Fitzwilliam steps off the train to the sound of screams. Miss Pinkerton is dead.
His mind is preoccupied with the murders she told him about, so he decides to check out the village – “a place where murder is easy”, he says, for himself.
Across two episodes, Rye Lane and Industry star David Jonsson plays Fitzwilliam as he delves into the mystery in a BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1939 crime novel Murder Is Easy. He’s joined by a talented cast including The Rings Of Power’s Morfydd Clark, who is from Penarth.
WHY DID YOU WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN THE SERIES?
DJ: First of all, this has got to be the most excited my mum’s been about me doing a job, ever! Agatha Christies mean more than just a regular murder mystery. They’re a British institution - they bring people together and encompass a lot of what it means to be British.
Having a Black hero felt incredibly fresh and exciting to me. I feel very privileged that I’m able to do that.
MORFYDD, CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT BRIDGET?
MC: She was a secretary to Lord Whitfield (Tom Riley) and they fell in love, so she’s climbed the ladder of status and hierarchy that way. But she’s playing a role, and she’s surrounded by people but feels quite isolated and is also incredibly emotionally unavailable.
Bridget is very clever. She’s also quite chameleon-like and can fit in anywhere. She’s got an ability to talk to everybody and decipher what they’re really saying - it’s hard to be cryptic to Bridget because she will figure it out. She’s also got a lot of whimsy in her that she’s suppressed, and it’s fun trying to find the bits where that nearly jumps out.
WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN YOU FIRST READ THE SCRIPT?
MC: I love Agatha Christie because I love outrageous people and the extremes of human beings, and the extremes of human beings in small areas. My uncle always says this phrase - “the smaller the village the bigger the hell”, and that’s very Agatha Christie!
It’s really fun that Agatha Christies continue to be remade, changed, evolved and respected all at the same time.There’s a lot of discussion about power in this show, and the effects of power used badly, plus what it means to be powerless and all the different ways in which you can be powerless.
I think we are kind of different in some ways to when Christie wrote these, but I think we still live in a world where there are people with a huge amount of power and people with very little, and that’s why I think it continues to be so interesting.
WHAT’S FITZWILLIAM’S RELATIONSHIP WITH BRIDGET LIKE?
MC: I think she’s very bored when we first meet her, and Luke is fascinating, clever and witty, and also kinder than lots of the people she’s around.
DJ: They have this indescribable relationship - I don’t want to pigeonhole it and say it’s the love story, because it’s more than that. I really think they find a way to help one another and do something that’s greater than themselves. It’s really wonderfully written - there’s just something very complex about their relationship.