Doctor Who Vs. Marple: Sleeping Murder

The Queen of Crime's final novel, first dramatised

for television by the BBC in 1987, was heavily

adapted by Stephen Churchett for this ITV version.

The mystery (subtitled Miss Marple's Last Case), 

published posthumously in 1976, was probably 

written in 1940, although Agatha Christie scholar

John Curran argued that it was completed ten years

later. His book, Murder in the Making, included the writer's final Marple story, the unpublished The

Caretaker's Wife.

Repeated on ITV3 today, the drama opened the

second run of Marple - it first aired in February

2005. Geraldine McEwan again portrayed Jane Marple, and Paul McGann was joined here by

sixteen Doctor Who cast and crew connections:

• Sarah Parish (Evie here; Flossie in The Big Four) was the Empress of the Racnoss in The Runaway Bride
• Phil Davis (Dr. Kennedy here; Tavener in Crooked House, 2008) was Lucius Petrus Dextrus in The Fires of Pompeii, and voiced Titus for Big Finish's The Cannibalists (2009)
• Nickolas Grace (Luff here; Underhill in The Man in the Brown Suit) made a brief TV appearance as Albert Einstein (pictured) in Death is the Only Answer, and voiced Loozly for Bang-Bang-A-Boom! (2002), Straxus for Human Resources (2007), Sisters of the Flame and The Vengeance of Morbius (both 2008), Viktor Skaarsgard/Balancer for Equilibrium (2015), Goole for Gallery of Ghouls (2016), Professor Grove for Shadow Planet, Chevalier D'Eon for The Sword of the Chevalier (both 2017), Kellman for Return of the Cybermen (2021), Eldridge Brinkwood for The Empty Man (2023), and Secretary Pym for The Eternity Club (2024)
• Una Stubbs (Edith) voiced Flo in Horror of Glam Rock (2007)
• Sophia [Jane] Myles (Gwenda) was Reinette in The Girl in the Fireplace, and voiced Rania Chuma for Kill the Doctor and The Age of Sutekh (both 2018)
• Anna-Louise Plowman (Helen) was Diana Goddard in Dalek, and voiced Dr. Jennifer Harrison/Penelope for The Helliax Rift (2018) 
• Harriet [Mary] Walter (Duchess here; Miss Bulstrode in Cat Among the Pigeons; Joan for Absent in the Spring; Narrator in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 2024) voiced Beatrice Mapp for The Boy That Time Forgot (2008), then was Jo Patterson in Revolution of the Daleks
• Mary [Veronica] Healey (Assistant here; Beryl in One, Two Buckle my Shoe) was a Killjoy in The Happiness Patrol
• Richard Bremmer (Sims) voiced General Hemmings/Valcon/Taxi Driver for The Valley of Death (2011), and Old Beowulf for Black and White (2012)
• Julian [Neil Rohan] Wadham (Halliday here; Carrington in The Plymouth Express; Champneys in The Manhood of Edward Robinson) voiced Augustus Scullop for The Fourth Wall (2012), Dr. Joseph Holman for The Darkness of Glass (2015) and The Crowmarsh Experiment (2018), and Judge Perigold Trent for The Doomsday Contract (2021)
• Peter [Szymon] Serafinowicz (Fane) provided the voice of the Fisher King for Before the Flood
• Marcus Catlin was also first assistant director on The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang
• Garry Dawson worked as stand-by props on Cold War and The Crimson Horror too
• for Damian Timmer and Nigel Squibbs see The Body in the Library
• for Adam Recht see The Murder at the Vicarage