Partners in Crime, BBC1’s Agatha Christie reboot in which David Walliams and Jessica Raine played the crime queen’s married sleuths Tommy and Tuppence, is not coming back for a second series, RadioTimes.com understands.


The reasons are understood to be complicated and varied with Walliams’ busy schedule thought to be one reason.

But there is also believed to be a feeling in some quarters at the BBC that it didn’t quite connect with audiences – 2 million of whom deserted the drama by the end of the six-part series after an overnight rating of 6.5m for the opening episode.

The drama saw Walliams play the frequently hapless Tommy with former Call the Midwife star Raine playing his slightly more resourceful wife.

Christie’s stories, which were set in the 1920s, were updated to the 1950s and the Cold War era and the first episode told two stories over three epsidoes – Nor M? and The Secret Adversary.

The series received mixed reviews after a fairly positive initial reception from the critics.

The Telegraph said that after the “joy” of the first two episodes the subsequent instalment “lost its nostalgic charm” and “became irritating”.


“As we reach the end of the series,” wrote Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham in her preview of episode six“, you’ve probably guessed the identity of the spy with the atomic bomb, it’s pretty obvious….But we have to get through a lot more poking around in drawers, hiding in doorways and skulking in corridors in what is little more than a dangerous game of grown-up hide and seek.”