Episode 3 - Miss Marple in A Murder Is Announced (2005)
This week on Be Gay Solve Crimes, we turn our interrogation lamp directly in the face of Miss Jane Marple. Specifically, the achingly gay 2005 ITV adaptation of A Murder Is Announced. Join us as we give ourselves crippling 1940s Woman Dysphoria, watch the butchest of butch lesbians Spank The Hogs, and learn just how incestuous UK casting decisions can get.
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Comments (45)
Re Keeley Hawes: remembers Tipping the Velvet; slomo rose trailing shards of eggshell flashback strikes.
If you return to this sleuth, I'd love to hear your thoughts on The Body in the Library, which imo has one of the best mysteries of the Marple series.
No mention of Elaine Page 🖤🥹
"Medieval Monks keep a certain relationship to the acceptable" As in "it all is?" Cause they be brewing beer, doing sorcery, lovespelling each other, malingering, eating succulently, growing vegetables, illuminating pornography, inventing histories, blowing shit up, prepping for the apocalypse, doing human remains art, bickering with nuns
Being a cis male aspie, I spent my youth obsessing over Poirot because it was available (my grandfather got the Suchet series in DVDs from the newspaper, DOUBLE SIDED btw -inspector Rex was on the other side-) and Poirot felt really neat and well dressed, and I loved the feel of the series. On the other hand, the ITV Marple series didn't play on tv, we only got the Joan Hickson one (DVDs again) but I never poured over them. So I didn't want to get any spoilers from the pod. So imagine my JOY when right after this pod was posted, I realized that the English mystery channel on the Lesbos house (island) cable package, played THIS EXACT episode.
FYI, here in Seattle we do have Wrestle Your Friends night, which has massive overlap with the Queer & Trans Jiu Jitsu tournaments. Come to Seattle and you will be up to your neck in T4T wrestling. Actually, come here and I will personally wrestle all of you
I joined amateur sumo last year and did it for 6 months. Not inherently queer or even progressive but got to know quite a few queer/radical people in the hobby (Fyi "Rain City Sumo" is an amateur sumo club in Seattle)
I recommended this podcast to my dad, to sort of see what he’d do with the information. I expected him to start with the first episode, the Sherlock one. I flatly did NOT expect him to start with this one. He approached me the other day and said “I listened to your show yesterday, the be gay do crimes one? I thought some of it was funny, though most of it was very confusing.” So congrats on being at least very slightly legible to a cishet white man in his late fifties, I suppose!
Paired with Cloghorn Clegghorn, in Holland. EDIT: I'm normally neutral to mild approval of most perversions I hear on the Extended November Podcast Universe, but this episode... I still enjoyed it, but I had to close my virginal eyes.
Trans yuri siscon is not a crime
I'm hoping we eventually get Detective Pikachu
Loving this. Praying - though also strangely apprehensive - for you to do my fav, lord peter wimsey (the 80s tv show was quite good, I cry over the crowd’s boos)
given how often he’s been suggested to us, i think the crowd is on your side
I do love zooming in on a random bit of Britain and looking at the place names. Here are a few great names from the county of Devon: Frenchbeer Broadwoodwidger Peter Tavy Mary Tavy Bratton Clovelly Sampford Courtenay Newton St Petrock Bovey Tracey Zeal Monachorum Chulmleigh Virginstow
okay but now that david lynch was mentioned: are we gonna get twin peaks 👀👀👀👀
also, keeley hawes in ashes to ashes 😩😩😩
Loved this ep! Book nerd checking in: the lesbians are canonical, these are AGATHA CHRISTIE'S LESBIANS! They have the exact butch/femme dynamic of the show in the books, and their relationship is just as central. Hinch's grief is so devastating. Similar relationships crop up in (Tory peer..) P.D. James' books too. Surprising unlabelled lesbians are everywhere! Unrelated (and AFAIK sadly lesbianless), you should watch the Miss Fisher series.
Does Mac mean nothing to you, in Miss Fisher? The butch doctor? Phryne‘s best friend?
Oswaldtwistle is pronounced "Ozzle-twizzle" and having lived in the area for 2 decades the only other thing I know about the place is that it has an outlet store where you buy school shoes for cheap
For a minute I thought it was where Vivienne Westwood was from and then I realised that's Tintwhistle (which is said Tinsel, I think?).
In 2005 I have a memory of Miss Marple seared into my brain. During a particularly boring physics lesson my talented cartoonist friend drew a particularly hyper realistic drawing of another friend being anally fisted by Miss Marple. This was then passed around the class. I have no other memories of Miss Marple
Frances Barber and Harriet Walter should swap careers. Frances Barber keeps getting cast as radicals, queers and radical queers (Hinch, Dolly in Whitstable Pearl, Olivia in Chelsea Detective) but she's actually a Zionist transphobe. Harriet Walter keeps getting cast as awful high-society women (Fanny in Sense and Sensibility, Mrs Gowan in Little Dorrit) but she's actually a massive ally.
Walter does appear as a cool headmistress in a Poirot, an actress in a Marple, and, of course, Harriet Vane in the Petherbridge Wimsey series (which don't live up to the books but she's still wonderful in them). Still, casting directors of the world, let her play rock-and-roll communist lesbians, you cowards.
for another ridiculous place name, i recently found the delightful address Croftmaggot Road, Hollywood, Dumfries. what are we doing here
Checking in as another girl who absolutely loved foyles war. Out of curiosity, is Jonathan Creek on the list yet? Lord of trans to read there so long as you avoid the awful episode with actual attempted trans rep (gods that was so bad)
I have another slightly obscure suggestion for you, 1994's Witch Hunt. Dennis Hopper is a hard-boiled private eye in a 1950's Hollywood where magic is real. There are transformations and a politically motivated moral panic, which doesn't sound at all related to themes of this podcast, come to think of it. It also has an actual trans woman who sadly doesn't get a great role but does serve.
soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti, lets goooooooo
Listening to this with my wife in the car as they discussed place names and we pass by Otherton. How apt.
"We have a town called Underwear" For those not in the know, Mia refers to the town of Trosa which means "panty" in Swedish
This episode was fantastic, I hope you'll do an episode on Columbo, he's also the type to manipulate while seeming harmless
He's so, so easy to trans-code, too.
If you do books, I really recommend the first Miss Seeton book (Picture Miss Seeton), I had such a blast with that one. And I am so much looking forward to you Foyle's War, it's my comfort rewatch!
I read and enjoy A Lot of Miss Marple and Christie in general. There are a lot of queer coded characters in Marple especially. I can't imagine Christie was thinking of it on purpose but also I can't imagine Christie not being intentional about it. I'm just starting the episode and I am so excited for y'all's take.
She's always a little mean and judgy towards them but she's mean and judgy to everyone so it doesn't feel nasty
Is a series too long? Because I think you should do Luther but only series two in which everyone is trans.
Never watched or read Miss Marple either. Need to fix that it appears.
hello beautiful detective agency, i would like to reccomend you one of the greatest detective movies ever made. it is called the black lizard (1968). you must specifically watch this version, as it was written for the screen by yukio mishima (yes that guy). it features some of the most beautiful cinematography ever put on screen, beautiful footage of old trains, yukio mishima's self insert character that i wont spoil but that is incredible, but more importantly than any of that it is about how the titular black lizard is the most cool and beautiful woman alive. this would be neat in of itself, but the 1968 version goes crazy because the black lizard is played by a transgender woman and at every point the movie goes out of its way to make it clear that she is a woman and she is the ultimate beauty in the world. she is evil but it is in no way related to her being trans. it fucking rocks.
This does sound rather amazing. Jewel heist found family.
Great episode, they keep getting better! Still hoping for Soviet Sherlock Holmes
Soviet Holmes my beloved 🫠
Been watching an Australian series called Mister In-between. Shame it isn't quite in the vein of this podcast or Kill James Bond because there is a lot on the bone, re, violence, masculinity, and general discussion.
Having just watched Clue, this sounds quite close to it.
Love the episode art, I'd definitely wear an elderly detective boxing promo t-shirt
Hello shortly... i am not talking to detectives without my lawyer present
That complaint about the dissolution of the social fabric is why Starmer is banning incest porn. Life has got the brought back to the rural village pub.