Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar

Channel 5 make another original Agatha Christie mystery movie featuring Agatha Christie turned crime investigator. This way they do not have to deal with any copyright issues relating to Marple or Poirot.

Agatha Christie (Lyndsey Marshal) has divorced her husband and gone to an Iraqi archaeological site to seek inspiration to write romance stories.

Instead she finds love with a younger man. Max Mallowan (Jonah Hauer-King) an archaeological assistant is found by Christie after he is shot. The real life Mallowan actually ended up marrying Christie.

Christie also stumbles into murder then a monkey who has been poisoned and later found hanged.

Of course this could easily be a Poirot mystery. The desert, Babylonian artefacts being looted, a tablet containing a curse, an arrogant American tycoon and oodles of death, but that character is under copyright.

So Christie and Mallowan try to unearth the killer and also find time for some hanky panky. At times it comes across as Carry on Follow that Camel with a randy couple on the excavation site and some double entendres.

This looks more expensive than last year's Agatha and the Truth of Murder. It has been filmed in Malta. It was also more playful and lighter in tone in than the previous movie. I am not convinced that it actually made it a better film. I think Marshal fitted the part better than the previous actress.