Ordeal by Innocence 

Christmas 1954. Wealthy philanthropist Rachel Argyll is murdered at her family estate Sunny Point. Her adopted son Jack Argyll is arrested for her murder. He vehemently protests his innocence.

Stars:

Morven Christie, Anthony Boyle, Christian Cooke

Cast

Series cast summary:
Morven Christie	...	Kirsten Lindstrom 3 episodes, 2018
Anthony Boyle	...	Jack Argyll 3 episodes, 2018
Christian Cooke	...	Mickey Argyll 3 episodes, 2018
Bill Nighy	...	Leo Argyll 3 episodes, 2018
Matthew Goode	...	Philip Durrant 3 episodes, 2018
Luke Treadaway	...	Dr. Arthur Calgary 3 episodes, 2018
Anna Chancellor	...	Rachel Argyll 3 episodes, 2018
Crystal Clarke	...	Tina Argyll 3 episodes, 2018
Ella Purnell	...	Hester Argyll 3 episodes, 2018
Eleanor Tomlinson	...	Mary Durrant 3 episodes, 2018
Luke Murray	...	Young Jack 3 episodes, 2018
Catriona McNicoll	...	Young Mary 3 episodes, 2018
Abigail Conteh	...	Young Tina 3 episodes, 2018
Rhys Lambert	...	Young Mickey 3 episodes, 2018
Hayden Robertson	...	Young Hester 3 episodes, 2018
Brian McCardie	...	Bellamy Gould 3 episodes, 2018
Alice Eve	...	Gwenda Vaughan 3 episodes, 2018
Frances Grey	...	Lydia Gould 3 episodes, 2018
Sandy Welch	...	Dr. Edwin Morsuch 2 episodes, 2018

Storyline

Christmas 1954. Wealthy philanthropist Rachel Argyll is murdered at her family estate Sunny Point. Her adopted son Jack Argyll is arrested for her murder. He vehemently protests his innocence.

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Plot Keywords:

1950s | year 1954 | england | murder | murder mystery | 

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Official Sites:

British Broadcasting Corporation [United Kingdom]

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 August 2018 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ordeal by Innocence

Filming Locations:

Ardgowan House, Ardgowan Estate, Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mammoth Screen, Agatha Christie Productions, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD

Did You Know?

Trivia

Screenwriter, Sarah Phelps, admitted that she had never read any of Agatha Christie's stories, nor had she ever watched any Agatha Christie film or TV adaptions, until she read And Then There Were None for the purpose of adapting it to the screen. Witness for the Prosecution and Ordeal by Innocence were her second and third screenplays.

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Goofs

Jack Argyll never needed Dr. Calgary for his alibi. As Dr. Calgary dropped Jack off at a local pub, at 9:00, on Christmas Eve, anyone at the pub: Barkeep, barmaid, all the other customers, could have easily identified him, and vouched for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. Why didn't Jack, or his solicitor, seek them out? Also, Given the notoriety the case received in the press, it's makes no sense that no one from the pub stepped forward.

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Connections

Version of Agatha Christie's Marple: Ordeal by Innocence (2007)

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Soundtracks

Out of the Shadows
(uncredited)
Performed by Cut One

User Reviews

Agatha Christie come back, all is forgiven

Presumably - as with the majority of BBC writers - Sarah Phelps is unable to come up with her own plots and so pinches those of other writers.

That's fine of course, and this stealing of other people's ideas has a long, long history - but real writers use the armature and then cover it with their own work of art.

The BBC, however, has a long history of distorting the armature willy nilly before even beginning to create; then the creation proves nothing except that whichever scriptwriter is responsible hasn't understood the original work.

If Sarah Phelps and the BBC are so creative that they know better than Agatha Christie how to create a plot and tell a story (Agatha Christie is only the world's best-selling author - ever - after all...), then why don't they create their own work from scratch?

Or at least leave the armature intact.

There are artistic reasons for making changes to an original work if you're reproducing them at a later date. None of those reasons exist here (that's why Agatha Christie's work is devoured by each successive generation of readers). So the changes are gratuitous, and artistically pointless.

Good points:

• The opening sequence was mesmerising and atmospheric
• The acting was good in the main (shame about the direction and pace)
• It was a long dramatisation and so served to pass the time

Bad points:

• The sets and props were wrong in so many ways
• The music was, as so often with BBC productions, over-loud and intrusive
• The direction was turgid and made the characters even more unpalatable (and, dare it be said, boring) than even the script had rendered them
• The plot wasn't Agatha Christie's 'Ordeal by Innocence' (so why bill it as such?)
• The plot lacked subtlety, characterisation (just the usual BBC cardboard figures) and, ultimately, interest
• It was way overlong, extended by a slow pace throughout, pointless bits of cinematography, overlong close-ups, pieces of graphic insertion wherever possible, etc. - all in the interests of padding out the thin plot to stretch over three episodes

Thank heavens Agatha Christie will never know.