Agatha Christie's 'Murder Is Easy' to Star Penelope Wilton, David Jonsson & Morfydd Clark

While Americans were celebrating July 4th weekend with fireworks and barbeque, BritBox and the BBC were getting into a spot of murder, and Agatha Christie murder at that. The new co-production, Murder Is Easy, was initially announced in February 2023 as the latest in the lineup of BritBox's planned Agatha Christie Universe, which kicked off with the delightful Why Didn't They Ask Evans? in 2022. Now that the two-part thriller has gotten production underway, there are a few more details for fans to get excited about, including a starring cast which includes Penelope Wilton of Downton Abbey fame, David Jonsson (Industry) and Morfydd Clark (Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power).

Murder Is Easy is a lesser-known novel out of the Christie canon. Like Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, it is not part of the Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, or Partners In Crime series, which are the best known of her detectives. Although the story was refashioned as a Miss Marple story for Agatha Christie's Marple series (in which Benedict Cumberbatch guest stared), it's actually one of Christie's Superintendant Battle stories, where the mystery is investigated by local characters, and Battle eventually teams up with them in order for there to be an official who can make an arrest.

In this case, the leading crime solver is Luke Fitzwilliam, an ex-army man who was stationed in India and meets Lavinia Pinkerton on a train. In the novel, She tells him there's a series of murders in her village, which she's going to report, and when she dies in a hit-and-run just outside Scotland Yard HQ, he decides to bring her killer to justice. The Marple version changed things up; Pinkerton (now Marple) teamed up with Fitzwilliam after a different villager Miss Marple meets on a train dies on the way to Scotland Yard.