"I GIVE THE PRODUCTION VERY HIGH MARKS FOR TRANSPORTING THE VIEWER FULLY INTO ITS PICTURESQUE ENGLISH VILLAGE . . . AS WELL AS RENDERING THE IRONY OF ILES' TALE FULL FORCE."
Barbara Peters
The Poisoned Pen
First, to clear up the slighter mystery of the author's identity, "Francis Iles" is a pseudonym of prolific writer Anthony Berkeley which in turn is the abbreviated nom de plume of Anthony Berkeley Cox. Born in Watford in 1893, he was educated at Sherbourne School and University College, London. He published his first novel, The Layton Court Mystery, anonymously in 1925, thereby introducing his series lead Roger Sheringham, a "character that was not only somewhat rough around the edges but often blatantly offensive." Not a bad precedent for sculpting the murderous Dr. Bickleigh in Malice Aforethought.
Arguably Berkeley's greatest novel, and one of only three published as Iles (Before the Fact, 1932; As for the Woman, 1939), 1931's Malice Aforethought is a classic of the Golden Age of Crime Fiction (Britspeak for mystery, not a term they like as well as do we Americans). Despite laying out the identity of the killer from the outset, the author's triumph is to invest the reader in his crimes and the question of whether or not he will get away with them. The reward lies in the delicious twist of the final outcome, though this production makes the tragedy it visits upon Ivy, the one character who offers up a generous, unselfish act, a bit hard to bear.
Ben Miller's portrayal of the doctor is chillingly amoral—the man responds to sexual stimuli like a rabbit—and yet curiously naïve. When he meets the new mistress of the Hall, he can't spot her for his spiritual twin under her absolutely gorgeous clothes. And yet Dr. Bickleigh evokes some sympathy for he is a man rubbed raw by the village's class system and his patronizing wife, Julia, a woman who values breeding over kindness or love. Still, in her progress towards morphine addiction under the hands of her husband, Julia Bickleigh, too, gains more dimension and less stereotyping under the skillful interpretation of actress Barbara Flynn.
The character who best develops, going from immature young woman to a surprisingly dignified love, is Ivy, well played by Lucy Brown, a woman who, like actress Megan Dodds, makes the early 1930s look her own, drawing viewers into the gossipy rounds of upper-class life in Wyvern Cross—a life so gracious that it almost but not quite knocks the edge off the ruthless murders.
I remember the early Mystery! production quite clearly. It was somewhat more clinical. But it can't have surpassed the present drama in the richness of its period detail whether the automobiles, the marvelous clothing, or the details of daily life, not to mention the patterns of speech, the more formal modes of address than are fashionable today (you can be a lot nastier with formality, and a lot more shaded, which modern speakers who just rely on shouting and profanity, forget). I give the production very high marks for transporting the viewer fully into its picturesque English village (though the film was shot in Ireland) as well as for rendering the irony of Iles' tale full force.
Those familiar with Sheridan's A School for Scandal will recognize the precedent, though the 1777comedy has lighter outcome. One feature of the Golden Age of Crime Fiction is that its basic structure is that of the morality play and murder was still punished by hanging, making the stakes of the highest order.
Mystery! Malice Aforethought airs Sundays, April 3 and 10, 2005 at 9 p.m. on Channel 8.
