The latest armchair detective …
Agatha Christie has a lot to answer for with her whodunits and pleasingly quirky detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Hoping to join those names are Francesca Carlyle (Joan Collins) the host of a long running real crime series glimpsed in an opening montage of whodunnit, ‘A Murder Between Friends’. Able to afford a European mansion she rents it out as a holiday home where six friends from university meet up for the weekend. The group comprises of a combination of Brits and yanks that includes Devin (Simon Cotton) husband to Sonia (India Thain) Josh (Jacob Young) and his wife Kat (Nadia Bjorlin) and Loisa (Hana Vagnerova) and new husband Sydney (Toby-Alexander Smith) who has married into the group.
What is the murder between friends?
So when one of them is found dead in the hot tub and with Michael Barrymore not having been a guest they find themselves calling on Ms Carlyle resident in another part of the estate to find out whodunit. And as is the wont of such mysteries everyone is a suspect and secrets revealed bot least when two of the men are glimpsed in a tryst on the stairs. But there’s little to assist audiences in trying to work out who might have done it and why. It’s only at the very end that motives are revealed.
Worth investigating?
Nearly all these type of murder mysteries have a slight disconnect from reality but here it’s another world away so despite the dead body there’s a complete absence of presence by police, crime scene for forensics, or the outcome of any autopsy. Any investigation by Collins TV detective is undermined when its revealed that there was covert CCTV all over the mansion that shows exactly whodunnit with the final reveal having all the realism of an episode of Scooby Doo and all the authority of a supermarkets’ ‘Best Before’ label. And when a script includes the line, ‘It’s not what it looks like!’ audiences are likely to respond with, ‘Yes, it’s exactly what it looks like and every other paint by numbers murder mystery we’ve ever seen’.
A Murder by Friends is very much of the Sunday afternoon TV film for pensioners and it’s the casting of a never less than fabulously glam Joan Collins resplendent in rhinestone but only in handful of scenes and nearly always sitting down that is the draw. Lacking any credibility it’s pleasingly daft and the end credit that Francesca Carlyle will return could be seen as either a promise or a threat.
A Murder Between Friends on digital from 15th June 2026 (inc. Amazon, Apple TV, Sky Store, Virgin Movies, Google / YouTube Movies, Rakuten) from Plaion Pictures
related feature : The best Agatha Christie all-star whodunit films….
related feature : A Haunting in Venice special screening ….look who turns up to introduce the film!
We chat to Toby-Alexander Smith about the making of the film….and a bit about Eastenders too….
Here’s the trailer….
