Letitia Blacklock

A retired personal secretary to a millionaire financier.  Elegant, always calm and in control.  Constantly wears a 3-row chocker of pearls around her neck.

Dora Bunner (Bunny)

Letitia’s school friend and companion.  Neurotic, set in her ways, dizzy & nervous.

Julia Simmons

Letitia’s niece.  Works in a the local hospital pharmacy.  Is cool and collected.

Patrick Simmons

Julia’s brother.  A student.  Teases Bunny a great deal.  Very confident.

Mitzi

There is a great deal of comedy to be gained from this character.  She is Letitia’s cook.  An Hungarian refugee, who is convinced the secret police of her country are trying to kill her.  In the novel she is described thus – “Through the door there surged a tempestuous woman with a well-developed bosom, heaving under a tight jersey.  She had a dirndl skirt of a bright colour and had dark plaits wound round and round her head.  Her eyes were dark and flashing.”

Phillipa Haymes

Letitia & Bunny’s ‘paying guest’. A horticulturist working on restoring the gardens at the local manor house.  Widowed, with a son at a nearby boarding school.  Elegant, classy with a rather serious turn of mind.  She does need to smoke on stage as part of the plot.

Mrs Clara Swettenham

Widow of a diplomat – recently returned to England.

Edmund Swettenham

Clara’s layabout son. He’s an aspiring writer & left-wing intellectual.  Thinks of himself as a bit of a ladies man!  Wears glasses.

Rudi Scherz

Swiss.  Very small rôle – possibly double with Sergeant Mellors.

Sergeant Mellors

Craddock’s assistant.  Small rôle – see above.

Inspector Dermot Craddock

This is Craddock’s first investigation with Miss M, he goes on to appear in another four Miss M mysteries. She adores him – he becomes her favourite police officer and a sort of honorary nephew.  Though sceptical of Miss M at first, Craddock soon becomes one of her greatest admirers and an enthusiastic supporter of what he calls her ‘snooping’.  They make a formidable team. 

Craddock is pleasant, patient, open-minded, intelligent and reassuring.  He is an ideal collaborator for Miss M.  He is also very astute – ‘Consult Miss M for latest gossip’ he writes in a list outlining the steps of an investigation.

Miss Marple

          “The one with white fluffy hair and the knitting?

            …Everybody’s universal great-aunt”

                                                  - Chief Inspector Davy

                                                     AT BERTRAM’S HOTEL

Early days

It is thought Miss M was the daughter of a canon or dean of an English cathedral.  She had at least one sister, was well educated, for the standard of her day, and was taught to use a backboard as a girl, hence her always sitting very upright.  Though she became the archetypal village spinster, Miss M had a number of beaux in her salad days.

Appearance

Lght tweed suit – her clothes are always lady-like and dowdy – stout walking shoes, hat, gloves and handbag or knitting bag.  White fluffy hair, only jewellery would be a string of pearls and perhaps a broach.  She is described has having a sweet expression ‘with her head a little on one side, looking like an amiable cockatoo.’  She suffers from rheumatism, but puts up with it with good grace.

Character

Miss M is a superb actress and mimic, extremely inquisitive, intelligent and brave.  She believes very strongly in justice of the old-fashioned kind.  She always believes the worst ‘it really is very dangerous to believe people’, she once said, ‘I never have for years’, which goes a long way toward explaining why she is such a superb detective.