Doctor Who Vs. Miss Marple: The Murder at the Vicarage

1927 saw the debut of Miss Jane
Marple in The Tuesday Night Club
(a short story for The Royal 
Magazine), but Agatha Christie's
first full-length Marple mystery (her

tenth crime novel) was published in

1930. That earlier case was later

released in book form with a dozen

others in The Thirteen Problems,

Christie's fourth anthology.

Following the West End stage prod-

uction in 1949 (where Barbara

Mullen portrayed Marple), The

Murder at the Vicarage was first

dramatised for television by BBC1

(Joan Hickson's fifth appearance

as Marple), and originally aired on

Christmas Day 1986. An ITV Studios

version was shown in 2004. The

 mystery was repeated on Drama

last night - it featured David Horovitch, Paul Eddington (pictured left),

 and thirteen Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Cheryl Campbell (Griselda here; Lady Eileen in The Seven Dials Mystery; Lady Boynton in Appointment with Death) was Ocean Waters in The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Vault of Secrets
• Jack [Stewart] Galloway (Archer here; Marsden for Sad Cypress, 2003) was Captain Joseph Willow in The Awakening
• Christopher Good (Hawes here & The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side) was Morgan in The Beast Below
• Rachel Weaver (Mary) was Inga in Terminus
• Kathleen [Mary] Bidmead (Miss Weatherby) was an Elder in The Mysterious Planet, Rezzie in Paradise Towers, Mrs. Smith in Remembrance of the Daleks, Tourist in Silver Nemesis, and Woman in Survival
• Thea Murray was production assistant on The Masque of Mandragora too
• Raymond London was also production designer on The War Machines, The Krotons and The Mind of Evil
• Sylvia Thornton was make-up designer on The Android Invasion too
• Bill Chesneau was also sound recordist on The Invasion, The Curse of Peladon, Death to the Daleks and The Leisure Hive
• Christopher Sandeman was the AFM on Time and the Rani too
• for George Gallaccio, Bernard Ashby and John Walker see The Body in the Library

BBC Radio 4 transmitted a five-part adaptation of The Murder

at the Vicarage in December 1995. June Whitfield again voiced

Miss Marple, and was joined by Richard Todd (Kinda) and

Imelda Staunton (The Girl Who Waited)