In a sentenceWe came for Agatha Christie and left wanting to make Toby Jones a cup of tea
John Mayhew (Toby Jones), Romaine Heilger (Andrea Riseborough) and Emily French (Kim Cattrall) are at the centre of this two-part crime drama, written by Sarah Phelps from Agatha Christie. Julian Jarrold directs an ensemble that also includes Leonard Vole (Billy Howle), Janet McIntyre (Monica Dolan) and Sir Charles Carter (David Haig). Hayley Carmichael plays Alice Mayhew, Paul Ready plays Tripp and Tim McMullan plays Sir Hugo Meredith. Dorian Lough appears as Detective Breem, with Robert East as Justice Greville Parris.
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Toby Jones gives Sarah Phelps’s Agatha Christie adaptation a sadness that matters as much as the mystery. It’s a gripping two-part drama, though Julian Jarrold’s determined bleakness occasionally makes the going harder than it needs to be.
Sarah Phelps’s The Witness for the Prosecution is gripping, well acted and sometimes too determined to make us miserable. Director Julian Jarrold treats this two-part Agatha Christie adaptation as a chance to make us care about people we cannot readily judge. There is pleasure in following a mystery whose characters matter even while we have reservations about them. The performances justify the severity, although an evening in their company is unlikely to count as relaxation.
Toby Jones is the main reason it works. As John Mayhew, he makes unhappiness look tiring, and there is something painful about watching a face that seems to have so little rest in it. We were moved by that exhaustion: his performance makes us worry about Mayhew without asking us to stop questioning him. He keeps the drama close to an individual person when the surrounding bleakness threatens to make everyone seem equally wretched.
Kim Cattrall’s Emily French gives the drama another much-needed source of feeling. There is tenderness in the performance, and she lets it show without making a special occasion of it. That matters in an adaptation so ready to dwell on unhappiness: a character can be vulnerable without becoming a demonstration of how cruel life is. She makes Emily worth attending to in her own right, and the drama benefits from allowing that interest in a person to take precedence over the puzzle.
Julian Jarrold’s direction is attentive to atmosphere, sometimes almost to a fault. Felix Wiedemann’s photography gives the drama a forbidding look, and that severity suits the material; the images offer little encouragement to settle back and enjoy the surroundings. Paul Englishby’s music fits the sombre treatment, although the performances need little help in establishing the mood. The craft is persuasive, but an occasional easing of the pressure would allow the actors’ quieter work more room.
That sameness is the chief weakness. Sarah Phelps and Julian Jarrold are so committed to taking the story seriously that the darkness can begin to feel compulsory, leaving too little room for a change of emotional pace. Two episodes give the performances room to settle, but there are stretches when the atmosphere seems to be doing work already done by the actors. A change of emphasis would make the painful moments more forceful.
As a crime drama, it understands the appeal of watching people whose motives remain difficult to assess. The writing keeps us uncertain without making the characters feel like they exist solely to conceal information, and the performances encourage us to care about more than getting the answer right. The series remains entertaining despite its severity. That matters in a genre where the prospect of an explanation can sometimes become the only reason to keep watching.
Allow the two episodes enough attention for the acting, rather than treating them as a puzzle to solve while doing something else. The shifts in sympathy are part of the pleasure, and hurrying towards an answer would miss them. Choose it when there is no requirement that an evening’s mystery should leave everyone feeling better.
Most critics respond warmly to The Witness for the Prosecution, with praise clustering around the performances and its bleak postwar atmosphere. Toby Jones receives repeated attention for the emotional weight of his performance, while The Guardian singles out Kim Cattrall’s tenderness. The reviews broadly agree that the adaptation makes its mystery compelling through careful casting and a sustained sense of despair. Variety also praises Julian Jarrold’s atmospheric direction.
The differences are chiefly in how enthusiastically critics embrace that darkness. Several reviews describe the conclusion as haunting or emotionally affecting, while noting how little comfort it offers. Den of Geek is more measured in its praise but still finds the conclusion compelling. Radio Times supplies the lowest recorded assessment, though only a partial review is available, making it difficult to establish a firm dissent. The balance remains clearly positive, with no outright negative review among the six.
Mangan calls the adaptation a perfectly crafted, expertly cast Christmas treat. She particularly praises Kim Cattrall’s tender performance and the production’s evocative postwar atmosphere.
Read the full review →Goodman calls the adaptation a satisfying, atmospheric gem with a dark, twisty ending. He especially praises Toby Jones’s performance and the way the story deepens its mystery with postwar despair.
Read the full review →Hughes praises the adaptation as brilliant and haunting, while noting its bleak, downbeat ending. She singles out Toby Jones’s heartbreakingly good performance and the lingering final scene.
Read the full review →Ryan praises the adaptation as smart, entertaining, and thoughtfully bleak. She especially singles out Toby Jones’s performance and Julian Jarrold’s atmospheric direction.
Read the full review →The headline presents the concluding episode as dark and painful, but the review’s full verdict is unavailable. Its standfirst singles out the revelations about Emily French and the witness-stand lies.
Read the full review →Whiteley finds the episode a compelling, emotionally affecting conclusion, though its ending is deliberately bleak. She especially praises how the final revelations turn expectations about the characters and their roles on their head.
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Anatomy of a MurderFor another legal drama that makes judging people an uncomfortable business.
A SeparationCompeting accounts and wounded pride make certainty difficult to come by.
Gosford ParkA mystery with close attention to class, servants and unflattering motives.
The Night OfFor patient crime drama that takes the damage to people seriously.
RashomonAnother reason to distrust a confident account of what really happened.
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