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Sarah Smart Poirot

Agatha Christie: Poirot - Mrs McGinty's Dead - 1st September 2008

Sarah Smart ... Maude

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James Bentley is tried for the murder of Abigail McGinty, the charwoman of Broadhinny who also took in Bentley as her lodger. The evidence is overwhelming, and soon after he is sentenced to hang. Superintendent Spence is not convinced of the man's guilt, and so he visits Poirot, asking him to look into the case. Poirot then heads off to the village, where he becomes the paying guest of Maureen and Major Johnnie Summerhayes. Ariadne Oliver, Poirot's novelist friend, has also come to Broadhinny to collaborate on a stage adaptation of one of her novels with dramatist Robin Upward. With the clue of a bottle of ink purchased by the dead woman shortly before her death, Poirot searches Mrs. McGinty's belongings and finds an edition of The Sunday Comet newspaper, where an article concerning two women connected with famous murders has been cut out. With the story are two photographs of the women. Poirot discovers that Mrs. McGinty had seen one of the photographs before, and knew to whom it belonged to. But which woman was this case connected with? Are any of the people living in Broadhinny related to these women, as one of their children? Or perhaps one of them is one of the actual women? The puzzle pieces begin to fit in, especially after Poirot is shoved into the path of an oncoming train by an unknown entity. But will the murderer strike again?

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When Mrs McGinty is found brutally murdered in her home it looks like an open and shut case, and her introverted lodger James Bentley is swiftly sentenced to death for the crime.

But both his friend Maude Williams and Superintendent Spence have their doubts about his guilt, and so Spence asks Hercule Poirot to investigate and find the evidence that will put his conscience to rest.

In the affluent village of Broadhinny, Poirot is a paying guest of Major and Maureen Summerhayes. He finds that the titled and privileged villagers treat him with disdain, especially the MP Guy Carpenter, his glamorous wife, Eve, Dr Rendell and his anxious wife, Shelagh.

But he is soon reunited with Mrs Oliver, a guest of the dashing young playwright Robin Upward and his elderly mother, and together they realise that Mrs McGinty was silenced after threatening to expose someone connected to a murder committed many years ago.

Ever conscious of the hangman’s noose around Bentley’s neck, the little detective can’t conceal his delight when someone makes an attempt on his own life as it proves there’s more to be revealed.

And when old Mrs Upward is murdered, Poirot finally sees through the deception that has been woven around the case, and is able to reveal a startling truth that turns everyone’s previous assumptions on their heads. But will it exonerate Bentley and save him from the gallows?

Credit: ITV

Sarah Smart Wallander

Wallander - S01E01 - Sidetracked - 10th November 2008
Wallander - S01E02 - Firewall - 7th December 2008
Wallander - S01E03 - One Step Behind - 14th December 2008

Sarah Smart ... Anne-Britt Hoglund

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Kenneth Branagh returns to BBC One to play Swedish detective Kurt Wallander in three new single dramas based on the best-selling books by Henning Mankell – an international publishing phenomenon with over 25 million copies sold worldwide.

The dramas follow Inspector Kurt Wallander – a middle-aged everyman – as he struggles against a rising tide of violence in the apparently sleepy backwaters in and around Ystad in Skane, southern Sweden.

In this first film, Sidetracked, a girl is seen wandering alone in a rapeseed field. Inspector Wallander is called to investigate. Before his eyes, the girl douses herself in petrol and burns to death – the event is both shocking and baffling for Wallander. A hunt for the girl’s identity begins.

On the home front, Wallander, recently estranged from his wife, has moved into his own place. Linda, his grown-up daughter, is keeping an eye on her dad as he adjusts to bachelor life. Wallander’s relationship with his own father, Povel, is difficult and, as it becomes clear that Povel’s health is in decline, Wallander strives for a reconciliation with him.

Meanwhile, Wallander’s workload soars as three apparently motiveless murders are committed. The victims are all male: a former minister of justice, a small-time criminal and a rich playboy. All are viciously killed, their scalps inexplicably taken. Wallander and his team investigate, determined to discover who the killer is and how these murders are connected.

Kenneth Branagh stars as Kurt Wallander with Jeany Spark as Linda Wallander, David Warner as Povel Wallander, Sarah Smart as Anne-Britt Hoglund, Sadie Shimmin as Lisa Holgersson, Tom Beard as Svedberg, Richard McCabe as Nyberg and Nicholas Hoult as Stefan Fredman.

Credit: BBC

Kenneth Branagh stars in a new BBC adaptation of the Kurt Wallander Swedish detective stories. James Rampton reports.

Ystad, on the southern tip of Sweden, is the sort of quiet seaside town where a "cat stuck up tree" is front-page news. The residents are fastidiously polite, brightly-coloured yachts bob peacefully in the harbour, old couples potter along the seafront, and an unusually high tide is the source of fevered conversation in the bars.

But in the bestselling detective fiction of Henning Mankell, there is mayhem beneath the town's tranquil façade, and a crime rate to match south-central Los Angeles. There is only one man standing between Ystad and total anarchy: detective Kurt Wallander, "the Norse Morse".

The BBC has wasted no time in snapping up the rights to Mankell's novels and turning them into a gripping series, starring Kenneth Branagh in the title role.

Branagh brings real depth to the character, a troubled man profoundly affected by the crimes he witnesses. They seem to worm their way into his soul. Afflicted by diabetes, separated from his wife and struggling with dysfunctional relationships with his father and daughter, Wallander dreams of escape - "I could get a smallholding; carrots, maybe a couple of pigs" - but you know that he never will. He is repelled by the crimes he investigates, but nevertheless feels compelled to solve them. He is marooned in Ystad by his own sense of honour.

When I arrive in Ystad, the 60-year-old Mankell is on set. He has come to take a look at how the BBC is interpreting his novels - and he likes what he sees, not least the casting of Branagh, whom he met through his wife Eva, the daughter of Ingmar Bergman.

"I have seen some of the footage and I'm enormously impressed," he says. "As soon as Ken [Branagh] told me his ideas about the drama, I was very happy. I knew he was going to go in his own direction, and that really pleased me. It always makes an author happy to be told something new about what he's written."

The books, which go under the umbrella title of The Kurt Wallander Mysteries, are a global phenomenon, selling 25million copies. Mankell still remembers the first time he realised that his work had struck a universal chord.

"Fourteen years ago, we had a referendum in Sweden about joining the European Union," he says. "I was walking down the street in Stockholm, and a man in his sixties came up to me and asked very politely, 'I would like to know whether Mr Wallander will vote yes or no to our participation in the European Union.' I replied, 'He'll vote in the opposite way to me!' That was the moment I grasped the enormity of the character. People had started to look upon him as a believable human being."

Branagh agrees. "People really identify with him," he says. "Henning told me that after he'd written three Wallander books, he spoke to close friend who was a doctor. He said, 'I want to give Wallander another problem. What would be suitable for a man at his time of life?' The doctor immediately replied, 'diabetes'. So Henning gave the character diabetes, and he immediately became more popular."

Tom Hiddleston, who plays Wallander's young colleague, Detective Martinsson, and is also currently appearing opposite Branagh on stage in Chekhov's Ivanov, believes that Wallander is very different from your run-of-the-mill British cop drama.

"This is not just a whodunnit, it's a whydunnit," he says. "It's getting inside Wallander's head and seeing how the horror affects his psyche. The serial killers are getting younger and the crimes are getting more and more macabre. What's happening to the world when killers are scalping ministers of justice? What's that about?"

The stories gain added piquancy from the fact that these heinous crimes are being committed in Sweden, for so long considered a beacon of enlightened liberalism.

"Sweden has laid itself out as a very open society where the ideal of the common good is something to be cherished," says Branagh. "When that is abused and spoilt by the loss of human life, it's particularly poignant."

The other element that distinguishes Wallander from, say, Waking the Dead, is the stunning backdrop. Ystad plays a huge role in Wallander - it's as important as Oxford was to Inspector Morse.

"Sweden is a massive character in this drama," says Sarah Smart, who plays Wallander's sidekick. "It looks so different from anything back home. It's very stark, and all the colours are bleached. The style is retro. Everything is a bit wonky and quirky."

The actress, who played a bus driver in ITV's Jane Hall, adds: "This place seems completely cut off from the rest of Europe. It's eerie and remote. You could easily imagine people getting away with murder and hiding the bodies in the nooks and crannies round here."

Readers and television audiences seem to have an insatiable appetite for detective dramas. Perhaps that desire is hard-wired into our DNA.

"It's certainly one of the oldest story-telling traditions," says Mankell. "It was not invented by Edgar Allan Poe, but by the Greeks. Go back 2,500 years and look at Medea. That's about a woman who murders her two children as revenge against her husband, who has betrayed her and left her for another woman. If that's not a crime story, I don't know what is."
by James Rampton

Credit: Telegraph Online

Credit: Flip18