Tommy and Tuppence

Illustration by Arthur Ferrier of Tommy and Tuppence from the December 1923 issue of The Grand Magazine and the first-known image of the characters (See Partners in Crime)

Tommy and Tuppence are two fictional detectives, recurring characters in the work of Agatha Christie. Their full names are Thomas Beresford and Prudence Cowley. The first time Tommy and Tuppence appeared in a Christie novel was in The Secret Adversary (1922). They started out their life as accidental blackmailers (all in search of adventure and money), but the detecting life soon proved more profitable and much more exciting.

They appear together in four full-length novels and one collection of short stories. Their other appearances were in Partners in Crime, a 1929 collection of short stories (each reminiscent of another writer's work); N or M?, a 1941 espionage novel; By the Pricking of My Thumbs (published in 1968); and Postern of Fate in 1973, the last novel Christie ever wrote (although not the last to be published).

Tuppence appears as a charismatic, impulsive and intuitive person, while Tommy is less imaginative, and less likely to be diverted from the truth (as their first adversary sums him up "he is not clever, but it is hard to blind his eyes to the facts"). They therefore make a good team. It is in this first book The Secret Adversary that they meet up after the war, and come to realise that, although they have been friends for most of their lives, they have now fallen in love with each other.

Unlike many other recurring detective characters, including the better known Christie detectives, Tommy and Tuppence aged in time with the real world, being in their early twenties in The Secret Adversary and in their seventies in Postern of Fate. In their early appearances, they are portrayed as typical upper middle class "bright young things" of the 1920s, and the stories and settings have a more pronounced period-specific flavour than the stories featuring the better known Christie characters. As they age, they're revealed to have raised three children -- twins Deborah and Derek and an adopted daughter, Betty. Throughout the series they employ a man named Albert, who first appears as a lift boy who helps them in The Secret Adversary, and in Partners in Crime becomes their hapless assistant at a private detective agency; by Postern of Fate he's their butler and has been married and widowed. In Postern of Fate they also have a small dog named Hannibal.

Screen adaptations

Francesca Annis and James Warwick as Tuppence and Tommy respectively

The Tommy and Tuppence characters have been portrayed on television by James Warwick and Francesca Annis, first in the feature-length The Secret Adversary (1982), and then in the 10-episode hour-long series Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime (1983).

The novel By the Pricking of My Thumbs was adapted in 2005 by the French director Pascal Thomas with the title Mon petit doigt m'a dit.... The movie casts André Dussolier as Bélisaire and Catherine Frot as Prudence Beresford. The action is transposed to Savoy. A second movie, Le crime est notre affaire, came out in 2008. Le crime est notre affaire is named after Partners in Crime and stars the Beresfords, but its story is based on 4.50 From Paddington, which was originally a novel starring Miss Marple.

An adaptation of By the Pricking of My Thumbs appeared in 2006 as an episode of the Granada television series Marple. In this version, Tommy and Tuppence were played by Anthony Andrews and Greta Scacchi respectively, but, unlike in the book, with Miss Marple as the detective character instead of Tommy and Tuppence.

External links

• Tommy and Tuppence at the official Agatha Christie Website
• About Tommy and Tuppence
• Tuppence at the Internet Movie Database
• Tommy at the Internet Movie Database