Inspector Craddock

In all four Margaret Rutherford films, Craddock is played by Charles "Bud" Tingwell. In Murder She Said, he doesn't believe Marple saw a murder on the train, since there's no body.

She finds the body on her own, and Craddock spends the rest of the film catching up. It becomes a fun routine: he huffs, she insists, and in the end she's the one who hands him the culprit.

Tingwell, an Australian actor, stayed in the role for all four films, and his pairing with Rutherford became one of the series' trademarks. Craddock is never a fool: he just follows the rules, while Marple follows her nose.

In the later films, Tingwell stays on as Craddock, with Sergeant Bacon never far away. He brushes off the idea of murder when old Enderby falls down the stairs and ends up locked in his own hiding place during the trap on the ship.

Even so, he never shuts her out for good. Deep down he knows her hunches tend to be right, and he shows up at the end to make the arrest.

In The Mirror Crack'd, with Angela Lansbury, Craddock is played by Edward Fox and appears as Marple's nephew.

While his aunt follows things from home, he's the one who questions the Hollywood stars after the poisoning at Gossington Hall, bringing her the facts so she can put the puzzle together.

On the BBC, John Castle plays Craddock in A Murder Is Announced. Here he hasn't even met Marple and has to get used to the lady who turns up in Chipping Cleghorn asking questions.

Craddock runs the investigation into the shooting at Little Paddocks, while Marple, from the sidelines, sees what he can't.

He suspects the right people for the wrong reasons and is slow to accept that so many villagers are hiding who they really are. When Marple sets her final trap, Craddock plays along and is there to hear the confession.

In the BBC's last story, John Castle returns as Craddock, and now he's Marple's nephew, a continuity slip the series let slide.

With family trust on his side, he shares every step of the investigation into the death at Marina Gregg's party with his aunt.

In the books, Dermot Craddock is the godson of Marple's friend Sir Henry Clithering and appears in A Murder Is Announced, 4.50 from Paddington and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. On screen he's been played by Bud Tingwell, Edward Fox and John Castle.