A Christie done badly follows the mechanics of the plot and moves the characters around like chess pieces. Clever but superficial. One of the delights of Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation is while she remains faithful to the spirit of the original, she actively mines the emotional pockets of the story to great effect.
Miss Marple limited by her ankle injury feels the walls closing in around her. As she later explains, as she grew older, her options narrowed until she was facing a proverbial brick wall. Patronised by society, she chafes against the assumptions made against her – though she is not beyond using those prejudices to her own advantage to get information out of suspects.
From the confines of her armchair, she quizzes friends and suspects alike, building up a jigsaw of the different perspectives given to her. The Mirror Crack’d deploys a theatrical device of freezing the scene while the characters reconstruct a flashback based on whoever’s testimony is being given at the time. Aside from keeping the momentum going and avoiding endless scene changes, it has the effect of keeping Mrs Marple at the centre of the story conducting events rather than being sidelined.
Wagstaff’s script manages to be witty and playful without holding up the twists and turns befitting a cracking whodunnit. Likewise Adrian Linford‘s rotating structure – one side a glass hallway, the other a wall of mirror panels – allows for a speedy flow between scenes and locations. Ingeniously these mirror panels reflect and magnify the suspects, suggesting the growing number of people under suspicion.