Trivia for Today

Recently, PBS re-aired the "Poirot" Season 11 episode of "Cat Among the Pidgeons." We noticed, that in addition to actress Katie Leung, Cho Chang of "Harry Potter" that not one, but two actresses who have played dastardly Mrs. Fanny Ferrars Dashwood in two productions of "Sense and Sensibility" are also featured.

Clare Skinner, who played self-concerned Fanny in the excellent 2008 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, plays teacher Miss Ross in the Poirot film. Harriet Walker also played Fanny, but in the 1995 Emma Thompson-written/starring version, directed by Ang Lee, plays Miss Bulstrode, head mistress of the girl's school in "Cat."

And in another note of coincidence, school administrator Ann Shapland is played by pretty Natasha Little, who starred as lead character Becky Sharpe in the 1998 version of "Vanity Fair," and subsequently co-starred in the bigger budgeted Reese Witherspoon-starring 2004 take on Henry Fielding's novel as Lady Jane Sheepshanks.