MAIGRET, Season 2, news

MASTERPIECE PBS has announced that Season 2 of Maigret will premiere on Sunday, October 18 at 9/8c on PBS. It will also be available to stream via the PBS app and PBS MASTERPIECE on Prime Video. 

Based on Georges Simenon’s novels about the iconic French detective, this groundbreaking, contemporary version of Maigret is written by Patrick Harbinson.

 

In the second installment of the MASTERPIECE Mystery! series, Chief Inspector Maigret (Benjamin Wainwright) and his team of detectives investigate a series of haunting and complex crimes. Based on adaptations of three of Simenon’s most famous Maigret novels – The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, The Yellow Dog, and Maigret’s Revolver – Season 2 raises the stakes for Maigret and his wife Louise (Stephanie Martin).

 

Maigret’s unique brand of justice exposes him to the critical eye of his mentor, Police Director Xavier Guichard (Nathaniel Parker). He decides that Maigret needs to be taught a lesson and deliberately weakens his team. With the pressure mounting inexorably, Maigret will be forced to make a choice between his personal life and his career.

Georges Simenon's MAIGRET: PBS MASTERPIECE NEWS & MORE

MASTERPIECE PBS is co-producing a new detective series - Maigret.

MASTERPIECE Head of Scripted Content and Executive Producer Susanne Simpson said: “Maigret will be a perfect addition to MASTERPIECE’s line up of Mystery! shows. Our partners at Playground have assembled an incredible cast and creative team, and our audience is going to love Inspector Maigret and his unique style of crime solving.” 

This is the first contemporary television adaptation of Georges Simenon’s novels about the streetwise Parisian Chief Inspector Jules Maigret. Production has started production in Budapest. Colin Callender and David Stern will executive produce for Playground, the Golden Globe and BAFTA award winning production company behind upcoming series Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light and All Creatures Great and Small, both for MASTERPIECE.

Jules Maigret will be played by Benjamin Wainwright (Belgravia: The Next Chapter, Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim), and Stefanie Martini (The Gold, Last Kingdom, Emerald City) stars as his wife Madame Louise Maigret. Patrick Harbinson (Homeland, 24, The Tower) serves as lead writer and executive producer and will direct the first two episodes of the series.

The Jules Maigret series is the second best-selling detective series ever, behind only Sherlock Holmes. 

“To understand and not to judge”: Maigret strives above all to unravel our motivations. He is good at this not because he is a genius, or has special methods, but because he listens – he doesn’t solve crimes so much as he solves people.

I'm looking forward to the new Maigret series.

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Maigret has appeared numerous times on the screen, with at least thirty-four actors assuming the role at different times. The long list of film adaptations began in 1932, two years after Maigret was created, with the release of two films. 

Some of the actors who portrayed Maigret: Michael Gabon, Rowan Atkinson, Gérard Depardieu, Bruno Cremer, and Jean Richard.

Though Simenon's books have been adapted many times for film and television, Rupert Davies's celebrated, BAFTA-winning portrayal won the approval of Simenon himself, who stated: At last, I have found the perfect Maigret! Running to 52 episodes, this complete 1960s series has been remastered in High Definition from original film elements and is featured now on MHz in its original full screen TV format. 

Read J. Madison Davis's article on The Faces of Maigret, here: 

While you're waiting for what will be a great PBS Masterpiece series have a look at some of the other portrayals of Maigret, of which many are available to stream. 

Or, start reading Simenon's mysteries. They are wonderful!

Why read the Simenon novels?  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/04/the-enduring-depth-and-genius-of-inspector-maigret-by-graeme-macrae-burnett

Georges Simenon's Maigret on BritBox

BritBox releases the first two of four Simenon episodes today with Rowan Atkinson as Maigret. Rowan Atkinson is, of course, known for his comedic character Mr Bean. In this production, Rowan plays the moody French detective and does a good job. As Jules Maigret, Atkinson’s principal asset is stillness. Playing the iconic 1950s French detective in ITV’s adaptation of the best-selling crime novels by Georges Simenon, the actor succeeds in conveying as many emotions when he is silent as lesser performers manage in an entire speech.

BritBox profiled comedic actor Rowan Atkinson in February before airing the exclusive U.S. premiere of his first dramatic role in the detective drama Maigret.

The subscription streaming service from BBC Worldwide and ITV looks back at some of Atkinson’s most popular roles. The service already streams “Blackadder,” and in February adds “Not the Nine O’Clock News” and “Canned Laughter.”

Atkinson gets serious today in “Maigret,” a new series based on author Georges Simenon’s iconic, pipe-smoking policeman who has become one of this century’s classic fictional sleuths.

From The Independent - Rowan Atkinson as Maigret:
The actor, who has also starred in such globally popular comedies as Johnny English and Blackadder, says: “The thing I thought I could do was Maigret’s thoughtfulness. It’s his ruminative and quite compassionate side, I suppose, which is interesting. Because he is definitely not an egotist, he is not a performer, he is not an eccentric, he is not a weirdo.

Read a great article about Maigret's Paris and Simenon at CrimeFictionLover
https://crimefictionlover.com/2017/02/maigrets-paris/

New Maigret TV Movies starring Rowan Atkinson

Rowan Atkinson will star in new ITV adaptation of Maigret. The Mr Bean and Blackadder actor is set to play the famous French detective Jules Maigret in two stand-alone dramas.

from RadioTimes:

ITV has announced a new adaptation of George Simenon's novels about Parisian sleuth Jules Maigret. The books were originally adapted by the BBC in the 1960s, before Michael Gambon stepped into the detective's shoes in an ITV version in 1992.

Rowan Atkinson will play Maigret in two stand-alone, 120-minute films for the channel. Both dramas will be set in 1950s Paris, with screenwriter Stewart Harcourt adapting the books Maigret Sets a Trap and Maigret's Dead Man.

Atkinson said, "I have been a devourer of the Maigret novels for many years and I'm very much looking forward to playing such an intriguing character, at work in Paris during a fascinating period in its history."

The novelist's son John Simenon has given Atkinson his backing, saying: “Maigret has been part of our family for almost nine decades, and we are bringing together one of the best-known characters in world literature with one of the greatest international stars.

"I have no doubt my father, like me, would have approved of Rowan’s casting and been very excited to see him inhabit his most renowned creation.”

HT: EuroCrime

Penguin to reissue ALL 75 Inspector Maigret Mysteries

Penguin is reissuing, in new translations, all 75 of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret mysteries -- some of the bleakest, and best, works ever produced in the genre.

The first two are out already, including “Pietr the Latvian,” originally published in 1930, the earliest book to feature the iconic Paris police inspector.

Simenon was very prolific; in addition to his Maigret novels, he also produced 117 romans durs, or hard novels, which Luc Sante describes in a 2007 Bookforum essay as “punishing studies of human beings driven by circumstance and personality to the ends of their tethers” -- a total of 400-plus books in all.

HT Bill Gottfried