Glamorous 20s crimebuster Miss Fisher is heading for Blighty 

She’s an engaging combination of Indiana Jones and Miss Marple, a glamorous, risk-taking sleuth with an eye for adventure. If you haven’t done so already, meet Miss Phryne Fisher.

Some UK viewers will have seen her crime-busting in 1920s Australia during three series of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries on Alibi and Netflix. 

Now she’s spreading her wings to Britain. Set in 1929, the feature-length Miss Fisher And The Crypt Of Tears finds Phryne (pronounced Fry-nee) tackling injustice in British-ruled Palestine then here in Blighty.

There are gorgeous country houses, expertly piloted biplanes, dramatic escapes, precious jewels, a simmering romance, an alcoholic aristocrat… oh, and a couple of murders. 

Essie Davis (pictured) who is best known for playing Lady Crane in Game Of Thrones, stars as Miss Phryne Fisher in a new feature length film

At the heart of it all is Phryne, played by Australian actress Essie Davis, best known as Lady Crane in Game Of Thrones.

It’s been a while since she donned the stylish 20s garb, and her return now is only thanks to public demand. 

‘We thought it might be the end when we finished the TV series in 2015,’ admits Essie, ‘but people wanted more.’

The story swings between the Middle East and England. We first find our heroine in Palestine, where she’s trying to help a young woman, Shirin Abbas, who’s been locked up for daring to challenge the authorities. 

Miss Fisher has no difficulty springing her from jail, but getting her away from Palestine is more challenging.

In a scene that might have come straight out of an Indiana Jones film, we see Phryne and Shirin leap on to the roof of a speeding train to escape their pursuers, then trying to crawl inside before it disappears into a tunnel. 

Phryne is trapped on the roof as the train hurtles along the track. Can she avoid the collision or does she suffer a horrible death?

It’s not a big spoiler to reveal she does indeed survive. But the action then shifts to Lofthouse Manor in the London area, the palatial home of Phryne’s aristocratic friends the Lofthouses, where a memorial service is taking place in Phryne’s honour.

Essie (pictured) revealed one of the film’s most spectacular scenes is when Phryne arrives at her own memorial service in a biplane

Guests include her aged aunt Prudence Stanley (Miriam Margolyes), her police detective friend Jack Robinson (Nathan Page), to whom she grew close while in Australia, as well as the rescued Shirin and her uncle Sheikh Kahlil Abbas, who has business links to Lord ‘Lofty’ Lofthouse (Daniel Lapaine) and his brother Jonathon (Rupert Penry-Jones).

In one of the film’s most spectacular scenes, Phryne arrives at her own memorial service at the controls of a biplane which lands on the lawn. 

‘The assembled gathering is stunned,’ says Essie. ‘They can’t quite believe she avoided death.’

Sadly, other people in the drama aren’t so fortunate. Essie stands in for Shirin to attend a late-night rendezvous with a mystery man whom Shirin refers to as her guardian angel. 

Phryne can’t be pinned down, she’s a free spirit 

But tragedy unfolds in the London church where the meeting takes place. Then, at a party organised by Lofty, there’s another murder – with the hard-drinking lord a prime suspect.

Along the way, Phryne develops the happy knack of discovering precious gemstones. An emerald is found on a pendant in the hands of the man found murdered in the church. 

A rather larger emerald is found among the possessions of the man killed at Lofthouse Manor.

‘Phryne’s investigations take her back to the Middle East,’ explains Essie. 

Jack Robinson (pictured) who is a quietly spoken Melbourne detective, becomes Phryne’s constant companion 

‘There’s a mystery surrounding the business deal that involves Lofty and Sheikh Kahlil, and Phryne also wants to discover what happened to Shirin’s mother. 

‘She realises the Crypt of Tears in Jerusalem may lie at the heart of the whole mystery.’

There’s a fair bit of discussion in the show between Phryne and Jack Robinson, the quietly spoken Melbourne detective who carries a torch for her. Will they take their relationship further?

The answer – and again, not a huge spoiler – is yes. After recovering from the shock of discovering she’d survived her adventures in the Middle East, Jack becomes Phryne’s constant companion and is beside her when the going gets really tough. 

‘Fans of the series all over the world said they wanted to see the romance renewed and we listened,’ says Essie. ‘Although it’s far from being a smooth ride.’

Writer Deb Cox adds, ‘You see Jack grappling with questions like, “What do you do with a woman you can’t keep tabs on, someone you can’t marry and who you can’t pin down because she’s an independent, free spirit?” She fascinates him and Phryne loves him, but she doesn’t want to be tied down, so they have this dilemma.

‘But by the end there’s progress and there is also a little bit of bending from both of them.’

Parts of the film were shot in Morocco, in and close to the town of Ouarzazate, which doubles as Jerusalem. 

Pictured: Miriam Margolyes as Prudence, Essie’s aged aunt

Sand dunes on the edge of the Sahara were used to spectacular effect, and a crater in the desert – where 1999 movie The Mummy, starring John Hannah and Rachel Weisz, was shot – was also used.

Filming did suffer a few bumps in the road. Many of the cast and crew were hit by a stomach bug, and the shoot was affected by sandstorms. 

The production did need a couple of them for filming – there’s a flashback scene where Shirin sees her mother disappear into one – but they didn’t necessarily blow when they were wanted. 

‘We soon realised why most of the Moroccans on set wore a turban on their heads,’ says director of photography Roger Lanser. 

‘When the storms hit, they instantly wrapped their face in a cloth that protected their ears, nose and eyes from the sand, which is relentless. The rest of us just did the best we could!’

The producers also had to deal with unexpected visitors to the buried Bedouin village they had re-created. 

‘We’d built a series of half buildings and to make them look sunken, we had truckloads of sand imported,’ says production designer Robbie Perkins. 

‘But on the day we were due to film, we arrived to discover the crater filled with 200 tents – no one had told us about a music festival taking place. We lost time, but managed to set up our village elsewhere.’  

Miss Fisher And The Crypt Of Tears airs on Good Friday at 7pm on Alibi. The three series of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries are available on Netflix.

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