#julia mckenzie

[leupagus]

Guys I Might Have Three Nickels

I've been watching "Agatha Christie's Marple" for the past few days and it's pretty good! Marple adaptations all tend to have a better caliber of actors than a lot of bog-standard mystery shows (looking at you, "Madame Blanc"), and while Joan Hickson's Marple is right up there with David Suchet's Poirot and Jeremy Brett's Holmes as "literally can never be beaten, these are the best anyone's done it," both Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie do a fantastic job as Miss Marple.

Then I got to "The Secret of Chimneys," Season 5 episode 2

and guys

Guys

So there's a murder of a viscount, like there is, and this detective Finch rolls up and immediately spots Miss Marple (in her NIGHTIE! standing at the window like some kind of hussy, honestly Jane) and doffs his cap to her with that little smile that makes you go, "huh."

At this point I've watched a couple dozen Miss Marple episodes where she goes through detectives like wildfire and this guy's supposed to be a "*guru*" so I'm expecting some battle of the egos or something and like, Stephen Dillane is great! But bleh, I might have to skip this one.

Then my dude asks Miss Marple to SHOW HIM THE BODY, with a pleased little smile at her as she goes "uhhhhhhhh but my knitting?" (He even does that thing where you use someone's honorific and wait for them to give you their name, and that's when I was like "ohhh this bitch knows exactly who she is.") What follows is what I can only describe as a meet-cute in the secret passageway where the viscount was shot (and in fact the body is STILL THERE) and where Miss Marple literally asks the police equivalent of "is there a Mrs Finch" and he looks at her like this:

At which point I'm like "ohhh my dude not only knows who she is, he deliberately came here without a sergeant so he could draft her," and sure enough he just starts...handing her pieces of evidence like "hey babe can you decipher this note for me thanks love you" while Miss Marple is like, "this approval and camaraderie coming from a cop... not sure if want."

Next is a series of romantic strolls through the gardens while they discuss murder, during which Finch reveals his undying love I mean his research into Miss Marple and the "dozen case files" of her previous exploits that he's collected like some deranged fanboy. Miss Marple responds to this by BLUSHING LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL and stammering about how pish tosh it's nothing really, and I couldn't find a gif of it but he's staring at her like this:

Yeah I bet u r tempted

He also makes a half-hearted attempt at negging her "amateur sleuth" status, only to then immediately assure her that he makes like, so much money being a big fancy detective and can keep her in all the yarn and garden seed she could ever desire.

There's also a late-night tryst at the compost pile right after Finch has been (mildly) poisoned and Miss Marple is like "men are so weak" as she roots through the garbage for clues.

Not how he wanted their first date to go D:

The next morning there's another murder which: bummer, but also allows the two of them to read love letters together and for Finch to give Miss Marple the following look as she explains how secret assignations among lovers can "quicken the ardor":

Miss Marple then goes onto solve the murders and btw hands over the priceless diamond that's been literally missing for two literal decades that she found in her spare time. The entire scene features Finch looking at her like this:

After the dust settles, Finch and Miss Marple have a lovely moment where he calls himself "another one of your casualties," then super casually mentions that he's probably going to have to go on assignment to use the diamond in a daring international espionage case and I can't decide if he's asking Miss Marple to go with him or simply trying to show her that he is cool and smart and would make an excellent wife, but either way the episode ends with her turning him down and Jane, we need to talk about your priorities.

Anyway I've already written 2K about the subsequent 10-year epistolary romance these two have following this episode because I make poor choices.

[perioddramasource]

AGATHA CHRISTIE’S MARPLE (2004 - 2013) Season 6, Episode 3: Endless Night

[getthestarstrades]

Broadway opening night of Side By Side By Sondheim, April 18, 1977

[loz37]

Period drama week 2023-

Day 4: Favourite time period/era

Has to be Georgian (1714-1830) probably more the regency era if I had to narrow it down. Lots of favourite Georgian programmes from then but also books and general historical interest. It's got that age of empire romanticism (granted not a very nice time for 'the savages' being 'enlightened' by the empire, to put it mildly, but good from a fictional point of view).

Outrageous fashion, beautiful architecture, romantic dancing, a cultural yearning for the pursuit of knowledge and art, a class system that was rigid in its roles yet traversable through hard work/luck/marriage/dastardly doings, whispers of war and revolution creating characters that are handsomely heroes/lovable rogues/cutthroat villans mixing with those from small country towns with no outside communication that are adorably nieve...

What is there not to love!?

[strawberryghostlight]

3 of you asked for it so here it is: my rating of all the Witch’s cut/alternate lines in Into the Woods

[veryslowreader]

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Fresh Fields: "Life Is Full of Ups and Downs"

[thatnerdinthecorner]

new fic dynamic just dropped: which one is the heiress to the possibly illegitimate son of king edward vii trying to divorce her husband because he wont sleep with her while maintaining ownership of her ancestral family home that was sold to him as a part of their arranged marriage deal, and which one is the orphaned and possibly jewish (he's not sure) german army defector that her father brought home to work as a gardener who has murdered at least one man for her already (if you don't count her husband which you shouldn't because technically that was the lion)

Bonus:

Which of your otps bridesmaids is the mistress (here meaning dominatrix) of the dead husband, and which of your otps bridesmaids is the ex-lover of the gardener/new husband who he manipulated into allowing him access to the murder weapon (not the lion) of the man he killed to protect his mistress's (here meaning employer) home by sleeping with said bridesmaid and specifically telling her that he was not in love with his mistress (who he is currently getting married to)

Double Bonus: Who in the wedding party is lawyer of the bride who once proposed to her, and when she turned him down immediately tried to blackmail her by producing proof she had been blackmailing someone else, only to find out she hadn't been blackmailing them, and then offered to ".. sue him! Together!"

Poor Mrs F

Poor Mrs W

[sweeneysondheimmusical]

Julia McKenzie as Mrs Lovett "Worst Pies in London"

[midsomercaps]

Midsomer Murders, season 9 - Down among the Dead Men

[mr-boundless]

the Collective

the Two (Michael Maloney), the Eight (Tim McMullan), the Nine (John Heffernan), the Eleven (Mark Bonnar), the Twelve (Julia McKenzie) and the Union (Maureen O'Brien)

[leupagus]

In my quest to get more people to watch this episode of Marple ("The Secret of Chimneys," season 5 episode 2 if you're interested), I may have inadvertently pushed people to torrent an available copy.

Which is a horrible crime! Not because it's "theft" or whatever, fuck that, this is a 15-year-old show and Agatha's long dead — but because in the torrented version most of this scene is cut, and it's the scene which first made me pause, frown at the TV screen, mutter "wait what" and rewind it to make sure that it's as outrageously flirty as it seemed the first time.

Spoilers: it is.

[ulrichgebert]

So alle 20 Jahre produziert Cameron Mackintosh eine Sondheim-Revue. Und zwar immer mit Julia McKenzie, die deshalb  für diese letzte, besonders prächtige namens Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends, die halt leider zur Gedenkveranstaltung wurde, nach 20 Jahren erstmals wieder auf einer Bühne steht (das heißt ihr Auftritt in The Philadelphia Story, wo wir sie gesehen haben war wahrscheinlich der letzte), sie wirkt aber recht munter. Einige von Sondheims Alten Freunden sind natürlich inzwischen tatsächlich sehr alt, besonders zu erwähnen ist die 89-jährige Petula Clark, die jetzt wirklich mal befugt ist, I’m Still Here zu singen (sie ist inzwischen 90, haben wir leider verpasst, wäre natürlich ein prima Vorwand gewesen, Finian’s Rainbow anzuschauen...), die unverzichtbare Bernadette und viele, viele Londoner Theaterlegenden, von denen wir einige auch schon auf der Bühne sehen durften (einige sogar in Sondheim-Shows). Es ist wunderbar.

[getthestarstrades]

Side by Side by Sondheim opened on Broadway April 18, 1977, starring David Kernan, Millicent Martin, Julia McKenzie, and Ned Sherrin.

[girlonfilms]

BBC welcomes Sondheim's Old Friends

BBC welcomes Sondheim’s Old Friends

The BBC is to broadcast the special one-off celebration of Stephen Sondheim that took place in London earlier this year. (more…)

[heartsandflowers52]

The talent in this photo though…

[sondheims-hat]

April 18, 1977: Side By Side By Sondheim opens at the Music Box with the original London cast Millicent Martin, Julia McKenzie, David Kernan, and Ned Sherrin.