Ariadne Oliver: Difference between revisions

{{Use dmy dates|date=OctoberMay 20132024}}

| portrayer = [[Lally Bowers]]<br />[[Jean Stapleton]]<br />[[Zoë Wanamaker]]<br />[[Julia McKenzie]]<br />[[Stephanie Cole]]<br />[[Tina Fey]]

| family = Alice (aunt)<br />Celia Ravenscroft (goddaughter)

'''Ariadne Oliver''' is a fictional character in the novels of [[Agatha Christie]]. She (like Christie) is a [[Crimecrime fiction|mystery]] novelist, the creator of the fictional Finnish detective Sven Hjerson, and a friend of [[Hercule Poirot]].

EvenAriadne inOliver onedoes ofnot thefunction twoas a detective, even in the novelsnovel in which she appears without Poirot (''The Pale Horse''), Mrs Oliver does not function as a detective, in that she rarely participates in the investigation and contributes only tangentially to the solution. In ''Cards on the Table'', she does interview some of the suspects, which in turn allows her to discover a hidden motive that even the police were unable to find; in ''Elephants Can Remember'', she again interviews witnesses, but none of the essential ones. SheOn isthe moresurface, usuallyChristie usedappears to use Oliver mainly for [[comic relief]] or to provide a [[deus ex machina]] through her intuitive or sudden insights, a function that is especially apparentas in ''[[Third Girl]]'', in which she furnishes Poirot with virtually every important clue, or in ''The Pale Horse'', where she inadvertently helpstips the investigators tooff determineabout the type of poison used to kill the murder victims, saving the life of another character.

The first television appearance of Ariadne Oliver on television was in an episode of ''The Agatha Christie Hour'' (1982). In an adaptation of the Parker Pyne story "The Case of the Discontented Soldier", she was portrayed by [[Lally Bowers]].

A 1986 television film adaptation of ''[[Dead Man's Folly (film)|Dead Man's Folly]]'' starred [[Jean Stapleton]] as Ariadne Oliver, opposite [[Peter Ustinov]] as Poirot. This iteration of Oliver is American.

[[Zoë Wanamaker]] played Ariadne Oliver in six television episodes of the series ''[[Agatha Christie's Poirot]]'', starring [[David Suchet]] as [[Hercule Poirot]]. In the last shot episode of the series (but not the finale), Mrs Oliver is helpful to Poirot in an adaptation of ''[[Dead Man's Folly]]'', which was filmed on the Christie Estate.

In the [[BBC Radio 4]] plays, Ariadne Oliver has been played by [[Stephanie Cole]] (''The Pale Horse'' (1993),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/2826252534f14d6887dc5d9b8514e054|title=Saturday Night Theatre: The Pale Horse|website=BBC Genome: Radio Times|publisher=BBC|date=2020|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref> ''[[Hallowe'en Party]]'' (1993),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/d265907af9da46f4bc782d31c2dc4acb|title=Saturday Night Theatre: Hallowe'en Party|website=BBC Genome: Radio Times|publisher=BBC|date=2020|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref> and ''Cards on the Table'' (2002)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/7ae1a2473c3941f382bfb83368abdadc|title=The Saturday Play: Agatha Christie's Cards on the Table|website=BBC Genome: Radio Times|publisher=BBC|date=2020|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref>), and by [[Julia McKenzie]] (''Elephants Can Remember'' (2006),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/4f0d9cc9d3a4470e9df3a451779e3322|title=The Saturday Play: Agatha Christie's Elephants Can Remember|website=BBC Genome: Radio Times|publisher=BBC|date=2020|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref> ''[[Mrs McGinty's Dead]]'' (2006),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/dc4e7a64f7d449899081eb3503b738ca|title=Agatha Christie's Mrs McGinty's Dead|website=BBC Genome: Radio Times|publisher=BBC|date=2020|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref> and ''Dead Man's Folly'' (2007)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/93c05021787b4077a01cc498cd9bbc16|title=Agatha Christie's Dead Man's Folly|website=BBC Genome: Radio Times|publisher=BBC|date=2020|access-date=3 April 2020}}</ref>).