Agatha Christie: 100 Years of Suspense (2020) - full transcript

Murder on the Orient Express,

Death on the Nile,

And Then There Were None.

We've all read an Agatha Christie novel

or watched a TV adaptation.

There's been a few over the years.

I think she's probably one of
the most prolific novelists

the country's ever produced.

The only other books that
have sold more than hers

are Shakespeare's and the Bible.

She created a genre,
really, of crime writing



that's still around and
people just love it.

It is not always that simple.

In each tantalizing mystery,

Agatha's much loved characters,

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple,

have astonished us with
their powers of deduction.

Oh, yes.

The little gray cells have done well today.

But how did a short Belgian

and a little old lady

become two of the most famous
detectives in the world?

Nobody is beyond suspicion.

It is impossible to conceal
anything from Hercule Poirot.

And how on Earth did Agatha Christie



come up with each
outrageously compelling plot?

She's the queen of crime

and her plotting is absolutely fantastic.

She takes you by the hand,
she leads you into the maze,

somehow she brings you out the other side

and you're not exactly
sure where you've been,

but you know you've enjoyed the journey.

Now, 100 years
after the first Agatha Christie

novel was published,

and as a new Hollywood version of
Death on the Nile is released,

we look back over a century,

at ten of Agatha's greatest works.

With access to the family archive.

I always think of two Agatha Christies.

There is Agatha Christie, the...

the kind of global figure,

and then there is what we in
our family referred to as Nema.

She was a lovely, warm, kind person.

We hear from the great lady herself.

You see, I put it all down to the fact

that I never had any education.

And reveal the
life and secrets of an author

who has entertained millions.

You start believing one
set of things to be true

and then she'll take you
on a very windy path,

and at the very end they'll
nearly always be a reveal

that you simply had never expected.

This is a celebration
of a century of Agatha Christie.

Agatha Christie is the world's
most influential crime writer

from the classic drawing
room "it was him" scene,

to the clueless sidekick and detective.

Red herrings and murder abound

against a backdrop of
unassuming quaint charm.

Was there much blood?

She kind of paved the way

for everything that's happened since

with regards to crime storytelling

in theater and television
and film, I think.

And in shows, whether it's
Death in Paradise, or Vera.

Midsomer Murders.

Jonathan Creek.

Line of Duty.

We see her debt absolutely everywhere.

But her extraordinary impact on the world

wouldn't have happened if it
hadn't been for her first book,

The Mysterious Affair at Styles,

published 100 years ago,

it's the tale of a dastardly murder

in an English country house.

Exactly a century ago, a
mysterious unsolicited package

arrived in Vigo Street in Central London.

Inside was a manuscript for a novel

that would mark the
beginning of a phenomena

that would go on to
enthrall billions of people

around the world.

This was the first novel
by Agatha Christie.

Four years earlier in
1916, the First World War

had been raging in Europe.

26 year old Agatha Christie

had recently married husband Archie,

and he had gone to fight with
the Royal Flying Corps abroad.

At home in Torquay, Agatha
joined the war effort,

working with a nursing
corps at a local hospital.

To pass the time she
would often write stories.

In 2008, the Christie family discovered

unheard recordings of Agatha.

This archive offers us
a fascinating insight.

People often ask me

what made me take up writing.

You see, I put it all down to the fact

that I never had any education,

that I found myself making up stories

and acting the different parts

and there's nothing like
boredom to make you write.

But one evening, whilst reading

detective stories with her sister, Madge,

a challenge was set.

Agatha's sister made a bet with her

that she couldn't write,

or certainly couldn't
get published a novel.

Agatha took the bet seriously.

I'd finished the first book of mine

ever to be published,
The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Agatha could never have dreamt

of how successful she would become.

And in particular, in this first story

with the creation of the
most prolific detective of all time.

He was the enigmatic Belgian
with a fastidious dress sense

and a head full of little grey cells.

The scarlet pimpernel.

It is believed that
when this flower is open

it is a sign of a prolonged
spell of the fine weather.

It is seldom seen open in this country.

There were a lot of
Belgian refugees in Torquay

at the time of the First World War

and that somewhere, somehow,

she either saw something or someone

that put, as it were, the
visual clue into her head.

Hercule Poirot appears in 33 novels,

three plays, and more
than 50 short stories.

Yet his first appearance in
The Mysterious Affair at Styles,

is not particularly complimentary.

Poirot was
an extraordinary looking little man.

He was hardly more than
five feet, four inches,

but carried himself with great dignity.

His head was exactly the shape of an egg,

and he always perched
it a little on one side.

His mustache was very stiff and military.

The neatness of his attire
was almost incredible,

I believe a speck of dust
would have caused him more pain

than a bullet wound.

And his appearance

wasn't the only unfortunate
thing about him.

This very unconventional hero
had some unexpected traits.

Effete.

Meticulous.

Arrogant.

Curious.

Sexless.

Infuriating.

Tricky.

As well as a deeply ironic name.

Hercule is Agatha Christie's
joke, that I remember.

She took a little man with a bald head

and a strange mustache,

an effete foreigner,

and gave him the most masculine of names

based on of course, Hercules.

He's not a fully rounded character.

We don't know a lot about his past.

We don't know a lot about his
feelings and his thoughts.

But that is sort of the point.

His function in the book is to
be a kind of extended brain.

It is his brain that matters.

Not only did Agatha introduce us

to a curious and instantly
memorable detective

but she established a genre
that has survived a century,

that of murder and betrayal
in sleepy English villages.

It's 100 years since the publication

of Agatha Christie's
groundbreaking first novel

The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

The book that first introduced
us to Hercule Poirot.

It is set in 1916 during the
middle of the First World War.

Lieutenant Hastings, an army officer

has been injured fighting
on the Western Front.

He's invited to spend his sick leave

at the beautiful manor house, Styles Court

by an old friend, John Cavendish.

Hastings is staying at Styles,
a very beautiful mansion.

Had a very nice long driveway.

It really does tick a lot of the boxes

that we might expect from Agatha Christie.

She's good enough to
supply us with a floor plan

which means that we really have to
think about the novel as a puzzle.

But all is not well at Styles.

John's stepmother, Emily Inglethorp,

has recently found a new,
somewhat younger, husband.

Mr. Hastings, my husband.

I'm delighted to meet
you lieutenant Hastings.

And the rest of the family

are suspicious of his motives.

Watch that devil!

The characters we see in Styles

are probably the type of characters
who lots of people think

are the archetypical Christie
sort of list of suspects

and victims, because we have
upper middle class

or upper class people here.

But they're also people
who are very interested

in things like hereditary, wealth,

and how this is gonna work for them.

So lots of people who
might have a good reason

to perhaps change the family
tree in a particular way.

As she was writing her novel,

Agatha was moved from general nursing work

to the more specialized pharmacy

where she began to learn about poisons.

This would go on to feature
as the murder weapon

in many of her stories and
Styles was no exception.

When Mrs. Inglethorp
is found poisoned,

Agatha uses her specialist knowledge

to cleverly develop the mystery.

She has really thought through the way

that a particular suspect

might be able to administer
a fatal dose of this poison.

Hastings, being there

suggest calling in an old friend of his

whom he knows to be in the vicinity

who, wow, happens to be the
greatest detective on Earth.

That's handy.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

was also the moment when
Poirot acquired his sidekick.

Hastings?

Good Lord. Monsieur Poirot.

It is, indeed, mon ami.

I played the role of Captain Hastings

in the television series,
Agatha Christie's Poirot.

I got a call from my agent

and then they asked me
to go back subsequently

to read with David Suchet,

and we read a couple of scenes

which seemed to go quite well

and they asked me to play the part.

You know they're completely
opposite characters.

Hastings is much more worldly than Poirot.

Poirot is supremely
intelligent and analytic

and incredibly tidy and
meticulous about everything.

Hastings is quite the opposite.

You say to me that Madame Inglethorp

- ate very little for supper?
- Yes.

One of those curious little facts, mon ami.

We put it here.

The detective needs two things.

He needs somebody he can talk to,

so that he can explain what
his thought processes are,

but also the author needs that sidekick

to misdirect the audience.

We are possibly half a
step ahead of Hastings

because he'll say something like,

"If you cannot see in this room what I see

my dear friend Hastings,

then you are even more of
an imbecile than I thought."

And of course we are
then tantalized by that.

What is it he can see
that Hastings can't see?

We flatter ourselves we're
cleverer than Hastings,

but we still can't quite see it.

Over the years the
eccentric Belgian detective

has appeared in dozens of feature films

with many great actors taking the role

including Peter Ustinov, Albert
Finney, and Kenneth Branagh.

But it took over 70 years
for Poirot to make it

onto the small screen

and getting the very first
adaptation off the ground

was no mean feat.

So my mum who was TV producer, Pat Sandys,

and she had persuaded
the estate to allow her,

my mum,

my mum,

to put Agatha on the small screen,

'cause Agatha in her lifetime
had said films or nothing.

And mum always described
it as going to the board,

the Christie board,

and giving a sort of an oral examination

of her immense knowledge
of Agatha Christie.

ITV's Poirot series
was first broadcast in 1989

and went on to run for a
staggering 70 episodes.

Actor David Suchet played
Poirot in every one of them

and for many he has defined the role.

It's almost like something
weirdly magic is going on

because he seems to me just to actually be

the perfect embodiment of Poirot.

Whenever I read Agatha
Christie now and read a Poirot,

I'm afraid I see David.

David Suchet's approach to the role

has become the stuff of TV legend.

He wore a fat suit and so
he had this custom-made

kind of wooden thing where he
just sort of leaned into it.

So in between takes, he'd
just sort of sit there

in this thing and lean and
have his cup of tea and stuff.

It's well know that he remains in character

a lot of the time.

I don't think I ever spoke
to him on the set as himself.

He was the character,

when he was having lunch,
he was the character.

It was a kind of moment
of truth when we did

"Death in the Clouds,"

some of which was filmed in Paris,

there was a big French crew,
as well as some English.

David came out and said,

"Ah bonjour, bonjour mes amis."

And the first assistant came over and said,

"Ah, bonjour David,"

and then started speaking French

in a really fast Parisien way.

And of course, David didn't get it,

'cause he doesn't speak French that...

quite as well as you think he does.

The introduction of Poirot

and his relationship with Hastings

were not the only seminal aspects

of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

There was one other groundbreaking element

that like the book itself
almost didn't happen.

It was actually suggested
by the publishers.

Madame et monsieur, good evening.

Originally Christie
had written the ending of

Mysterious Affair at Styles

to take place in a courtroom.

At the suggestion of her publisher

she went back and rewrote
it to be a... more of a...

what we could think of as
a drawing room conclusion.

Agatha Christie invented this summing up

where Poirot gathers
people together at the end

and you know that the
criminal is in the room.

Poirot goes round and says,
it could have been you,

it could have been you,
it could have been you,

it could have been you.

And you keep on waiting
for the blow to fall.

And yet Madame Inglethorp ordered a fire

to be lighted in her room.

Why?

Because she wanted to burn something.

Precisement Inspector Japp.

It's not something that
a Scotland Yard detective

would do, but he had to put up with it

because that was his way of doing things.

And that became obviously
a staple of the genre

and obviously of her own work.

Agatha's drawing room conclusion

was impressively inventive.

Not only was it adopted
by numerous crime writers

but it's also in the vast majority

of murderers television dramas
like Death in Paradise.

Following the success of her first novel

Agatha Christie wrote four more books.

By 1926, she was considered
a successful novelist.

She and her husband, Archie,
moved into a brand new house

in Sunningdale, Berkshire,
that they had called Styles,

and they had a daughter, Rosalind.

It was the publication of her next novel

that established Agatha as
not only a popular author

but also one who could redefine the genre.

It tells the tale of
another scandalous murder

in a sleepy English village.

But this one is a murder with a twist.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is significant

because it's Christie's
most daring crime mystery

and its twist fundamentally
changed detective fiction forever.

It does something really
audacious and unexpected.

It is still one of the
most extraordinary twists

in detective fiction.

That was the book that really set her up.

That was the book that made her name.

I cannot say what it is

about The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

that makes this book unique.

That is the problem here.

The story is set in the quintessential

English village of King's Abbott.

You've got the two big country houses,

one is Roger Ackroyd's,

one belongs to a lady
called Mrs. Ferrars,

and they've been having a bit of a thing.

And then it turns out that
Mrs. Ferrars has killed herself.

And then it turns out Mrs.
Ferrars has killed herself

because someone was blackmailing her.

I will kill you!

Another resident of King's Abbott

turns out to be none other

than the famous detective Hercule Poirot,

retired and without his sidekick Hastings.

I think Christie realized pretty soon

that actually she was quite
encumbered by Hastings.

So she was quite happy to marry him off

and send him to the Argentine.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

is narrated in the first person

by Poirot's neighbor,
Dr. Sheppard.

Dr. Sheppard.

Dr. Sheppard in the book,
plays the Hastings role.

He accompanies Poirot,

he knows a certain amount
of what Poirot is thinking.

The friendship between
Poirot and Dr. Sheppard,

who is so desperate to
help him solve the crime

is a really interesting one

particularly in light of what happens.

And you've also got
Sheppard's sister, Caroline.

I saw something quite peculiar just now.

Really?

She knows everything that's
going on in this village.

He was talking to a girl.

And if she doesn't know it

she's jolly well gonna find out.

No. The fewer people disturb
this room the better.

The incredible twist at the end of the book

was suggested to Agatha by
two very different people.

Her sister, Madge's husband,

and a member of the Royal family, no less.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

has been a very decided success,

firstly of course was having found

an original twist for
a detective story slot.

this which I must say, I owe mostly

to my brother-in-law's chance remark,

and as a matter of fact,

the same idea though in a different form

was suggested to me by no less a person

than Lord Louis Mountbatten.

The secret of Roger Ackroyd

is in pretty much every
sentence of the book.

And I read it a second time simply to see

if there was a single
sentence that was fake

or which lied to me.

And I can tell you, there isn't.

I think it's a brilliant book to reread

because to see how she
has placed those clues

is just exquisite.

Adapting the book for television.

Are you all right Chief Inspector?

Was not a challenge for the faint-hearted.

I've adapted many, many
Agatha Christie short stories and novels,

and they each had different challenges.

Actually when you deconstructed them,

trying to reconstruct them again

and nail them to the screen, as it were,

was often quite difficult.

With this book,

it was impossible to tell the story

the way Agatha had intended.

The TV adaptation with David Suchet

famously really didn't use the plot twist

and kind of actually operated in a more

traditional linear manner.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

was published by Collins
in 1926 to great acclaim.

But the book's central
twist was to be mirrored

by an equally sensational twist

in the life of Agatha Christie.

In 1926, Agatha Christie published
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd."

The book was hailed as a triumph

and propelled her to superstardom.

But her personal life
started to fall apart.

It's always seemed odd to me that

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

comes out this great triumph in 1926,

because that was the year her life

went so spectacularly wrong.

Just after the publication of Roger Ackroyd

Agatha's mother died.

She absolutely worshiped her mother, Clara.

This little woman but with such a force.

She was a perfect mother really.

While Agatha was clearing the family house

of her mother's belongings,

her husband Archie turned
up with devastating news.

He wanted a divorce.

The sense of betrayal was like a scene

from one of her own novels.

Archie met someone else and...

and things just, you know, fell to pieces.

She must've been desperately low

and so, I mean, Archie couldn't
have chosen a worse moment.

This was the beginning

of an extraordinary series
of events in her personal life

that would develop into
one of the most enduring

real-life mystery stories
of the 20th century.

On the 3rd of December, 1926,

the then 36 year-old Agatha
left her home in Sunningdale

said goodbye to her sleeping daughter

and then drove off into the night.

The next morning,
the vehicle was found abandoned

on a hillside close to the
Silent Pool, in Shere, Surrey.

Inside was a fur coat
and a driving license.

Of Agatha Christie, there was no sign.

I mean the media
reaction to this was extraordinary.

In some ways, this catapulted
her to another level of fame.

It was a massive story.

Thousands of people went around
the country searching for her.

Lakes were dredged,
all those kinds of things.

After 11 days, Agatha turned up

at a hotel in Harrogate.

She refused to speak about the incident

and was put off doing publicity
for the rest of her life.

Now exactly what happened
between her leaving Sunningdale

and turning up in Harrogate, no one knows.

It's actually a bigger
mystery than any of her books.

Throughout my life I've always hoped

that there is an envelope

that will be passed down through the family

and that one day I will get it.

I suspect there isn't

but I guess my father may have it still.

And I may get it one time or
my sisters may get it. I don't know.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

is widely held to be the greatest crime
novel of all time.

But Agatha was tiring of Poirot.

She began to look for a new hero

and was inspired by one of the characters

she had created in Roger Ackroyd.

Why, Hercule.

Madame Sheppard.

Isn't it terrible about poor Parker?

The character of Caroline Sheppard

was one of the inspirations
behind Agatha's new

literary detective,

and she first appeared in her next novel.

It's one of Agatha's
most well-known stories

and tells a tale of murder most foul

in another quiet English village.

One thing I love about the novel,

her enjoyment of the story she's telling

leaps off every page.

Agatha Christie's new detective

was none other than an elderly spinster,

Miss Marple.

- Nosy.
- Suspicious.

Skeptical.

Inquisitive.

Self-effacing.

Just granny-like.

- Fluffy on the outside.
- Machiavellian.

This brilliant, brilliant
concept of the little old lady

who's got a better brain than
the head of Scotland Yard.

I just had the idea.

An old spinster lady, living in a village.

The sort of old lady who would have been

rather like some of my
grandmother's cronies.

After her life had gone
so spectacularly wrong

I think possibly it was a comfort

to recreate the women of her childhood.

That she had this in
common with my grandmother,

that although a completely careful person,

and she always expected the
worst of anyone and everything,

and was, with almost frightening accuracy,

usually proved right.

Nothing goes past you Miss Marple, does it?

Hardly ever.

She obviously was slightly
nosy, perhaps a little Agatha,

you know, she noticed
what went on around her,

she's constantly popping
up from pruning her roses

to notice whoever it is walking past.

She has no life experience,

she's never been married,

she's never had children,

she's never experienced intense emotions

of the kind that lead one to commit murder

but she can recognize them.

The book is set in
the quaint English village,

of St. Mary Mead.

She never lived in a village, Agatha,

not like St. Mary Mead,

but she knew that life.

The details are very, very good.

There is one
resident the villagers despise,

Colonel Protheroe.

I expect to see a full
set of parish accounts

or I'm gonna take this matter further.

Yes? Is that quite clear?

Everybody loathes him.

He's making enemies
left, right, and center.

So he's kinda got an arrow saying "victim"

pointing to his head.

And then, "oh, hello," in the village

there's this kind of glamorous
young man painting everybody.

I forgot you were coming.

The usual stuff going on there.

Is he doing Mrs. Protheroe too?

You've also got this
beautiful kind of chorus

transposed to the English home
counties, of the old ladies.

Ms. Hartnell, Mrs. Price-Ridley,
Miss Weatherby, whatever,

they were completely in charge.

The vicar's terrified of them.

The Colonel is discovered in his study

shot in the head.

There were some really obvious suspects.

In fact a couple of people who step
forward and said, actually I did this.

A very bold piece of
misdirection as to the culprit,

but it comes down to a
beautiful simplicity in the end.

Miss Marple first appeared on screen

32 years after Murder at the
Vicarage was first published.

She was played by Margaret Rutherford

and Angela Lansbury on the big screen.

Then in 1984,

the BBC adapted all the
original Miss Marple stories,

starring Joan Hickson.

Joan Hickson who I thought was wonderful.

Joan wasn't a big enough
name to be in the films,

but she did have a letter
from Agatha Christie saying,

"you are my perfect
idea of Marple."

Oh. You look very shocked vicar.
Come and sit down.

I remember watching Joan Hickson
thinking, she is so good.

In the 21st century, ITV
brought back Miss Marple,

first of all, with Geraldine McEwan,
and then with Julia McKenzie.

Geraldine McEwan's is much more broad.

Julia McKenzie goes back to
that sort of original idea

that actually she sits
around in the background

and really observes and doesn't
draw attention to herself.

Miss Marple was an
instant hit with the public

both in the adaptations
and in the original novel.

The post World War I public were comforted

by this unconventional
matriarchal detective.

By 1928 Agatha and Archie's
divorce was finalized.

She was allowed to keep his surname

but after the scandal of her disappearance

she was constantly hounded by the press.

Agatha left England and
headed east, to Baghdad.

She heard about that part of the world

and decided that she'd like to go there.

I think this sums up her
kind of adventurous spirit.

It's hard to imagine now,
but I think, you know,

I think you should... is that how
brave she must've been

at a time when a woman traveling
that far, you know, on her own

would have been very rare.

In Iraq,

Agatha discovered a love of archeology.

She returned to Iraq for a second time

and that's when she met a
dashing young archaeologist

called Max Mallowan.

They fell in love and as soon
as they got back to England

they were married.

Throughout her travels
Agatha continued to write.

One book in particular

was influenced by her trips to Baghdad.

It was full of glamor and intrigue

and it would go on to inspire
two blockbuster Hollywood movies.

Because instead of traveling by steamship,

Agatha decided to take the train.

Agatha Christie's most celebrated work

was published in 1934.

It's set on the exotic Orient Express

the train that Agatha took
that connects East to West.

It is the summit of her genius,
in many respects the...

again, so hard to discuss it
without mentioning the solution.

It has a claim to being
Christie's masterpiece.

The solution is one of the cleverest,

if not the cleverest in the
whole of mystery fiction.

Hercule Poirot is called
back from Istanbul to England

and has to take a train.

He manages to get a second
class ticket on board

the famous Orient Express.

The Calais coach on the train

is full of an eclectic bunch of characters

from princesses to traveling salesmen.

Where he meets an American
called Mr. Ratchett,

who asks him for his protection.

He's been getting death threats
and Poirot turns him down.

He says,
"I don't like your face."

And then Ratchett's murdered.

Stabbed.

Multiple, multiple stab wounds.

The plot is based on a true story.

In 1932, famous aviator
Charles Lindbergh's son

was kidnapped and then murdered.

A tragic story that Agatha Christie

had most certainly read.

And there was also the case

that she found herself on a train,

that due to rain not snow,

was caused to stop for
a great deal of time.

So she put those two together
to create this masterpiece.

The weather has stopped the
train, no one can escape.

There's very much a
sense of, like, claustrophobia.

In the book, Agatha cleverly traps

her cast of characters in
the enclosed environment

of a train carriage.

The detective Hercule Poirot believes

that the murderer is still
on the train with us.

It becomes apparent that no
single one of the passengers

can possibly have done it

because everyone is alibied
by at least one other person.

Throughout the story the
reader is teased by the terrible kidnap

and murder that happened
a couple of years before.

This is a complex case that actually is
not as straightforward

as somebody killing just
for perhaps financial gain.

And then Poirot unveils
this amazing solution

that is the only one that
makes it all possible

and yet we just did not see it

and never would have seen
it in a million years.

The solution sees Poirot
facing an interesting dilemma

as the recently
murdered, Mr. Ratchett,

was a very unpleasant man.

He deserved to be executed...

for what he did...
- No, no.

and the world knows...
- No.

it was a travesty that he was not!
- No!

How far do human beings have the right to

bring about justice if legal
justice has let them down?

Which is a really, really big question

and the whole book turns on that idea.

He puts forward two possible
solutions to the crime.

One is an anonymous killer who
comes and goes in the night,

and the other is the real killer.

And he allows the police officer to decide

which version he is going to use

so the real killer actually goes free.

Murder on the Orient
Express has been made into

two big budget feature films.

The most recent of these was
directed by Kenneth Branagh

in 2015.

He also starred as none
other than Hercule Poirot.

From the minute I saw
Kenneth Branagh being Poirot,

I believed in him as Poirot.

Physically, a lot of people

were surprised by the mustache

but also I think that people think

of Poirot as being a bit sort of
perhaps shorter and stouter

than Kenneth Branagh actually is.

But he showed that you can
really rethink and reinvent

the character in different ways.

But back in 1974, director Sidney Lumet

was the first to persuade
the greatest actors of the day

to jump aboard his epic production.

I think Sidney Lumet did us a huge favor

with Murder on the Orient Express.

He kind of set up that genre

of the all star murder mystery.

Sydney Lumet's first
major signing was Sean Connery.

And as soon as he got Sean Connery,

then everybody else kind
of said yes, and came.

Albert Finney's
one and only portrayal of Poirot,

was thought to be closest
to Agatha's version,

clever, egotistical, and vain.

My first ever experience of
watching a Poirot in anything

was Albert Finney in
Murder on the Orient Express

and I remember loving that
movie, absolutely loving it.

I think Albert Finney's Poirot
was more sort of robust,

he was bigger, he was louder.

This was the only big screen
adaptation Agatha Christie saw

when she made one of her
last public appearances

at the premier in 1974.

She did indicate that she was
generally happy with Albert Finney.

But Agatha was far from finished

with either her hero or exotic locations.

And her next novel, as celebrated as
The Orient Express,

also took Hollywood by storm.

Despite her huge success
as a crime novelist

Agatha Christie continued
to travel the world.

It was even claimed she
became the first Western woman

to stand up on a surfboard.

Back on dry land, Agatha
was a regular feature

on her second husband, Max
Mallowan's archaeological digs.

Archaeology is something that
pops up time and time again.

She felt particularly happy
on archaeological digs.

It was on a trip to Egypt

that she was inspired to
write another Poirot story.

It was a tale of obsession
and crimes of passion

set against the stunning backdrop

of the land of the pharaohs.

Death on the Nile is one
of Agatha's shortest books

but the exotic setting
and well-drawn characters

make it one of her most famous.

Death on the Nile was probably
the first Agatha Christie I ever read.

I love Death on the Nile because I
grew up with Death on the Nile.

This is as good as it gets in
terms of detective fiction.

Death on the Nile tells the story

of wealthy American
socialite, Linnet Doyle,

who steals and marries
her best friend's lover.

They then go on honeymoon to Egypt.

Right over here.

First they're joined by the young man's
ex who is obsessed with him.

Linnet.

What a simply divine surprise.

We just can't stop bumping
into each other, can we?

Hello, Simon.

But there's something really...
the beating heart of that story,

the love triangle,

that story of betrayal and
what you'll do for love

is really powerful.

This is another
of Agatha's closed mysteries.

This time she traps her characters

on a seemingly tranquil
cruise down the Nile.

In the course of this cruise,
there is an altercation.

- Ms. De Bellefort!
- I'll shoot you like a dog!

Like the dirty dog you are!

Ah!

She shoots him in the leg.

And while everybody is crowding round

and a fuss is being
made about this event...

Linnet cops it.

Fortunately, one of the fellow passengers

is none other than Hercule Poirot.

There are lot of people
who've got motives for Linnet

so it's a classic in that way,

but the solution does something
different and inventive.

Death on the Nile

was first adapted for
the big screen in 1978.

Peter Ustinov made the first of
six big screen appearances as Poirot.

His portrayal was thought to be
more lighthearted and bumbling.

I love the Peter Ustinov Poirot.

It's maybe a bit left-field,

but I absolutely adore him as Poirot.

The Ustinov Poirot is
much more sort of gentle,

it's somebody who you'd much rather have

at a dinner party.

And you can see a lot of
Peter Ustinov and his sort of...

as famous raconteur, you can see
a lot of that in his version of Poirot.

Like Murder on the Orient Express,

this film attracted an all-star cast.

Sort of cast to the hilt, we'll get
Maggie Smith, we'll throw her in.

We'll get Bette Davis.

So you again, got that very, um...

stellar quality to the whole thing.

In 2020 Kenneth Branagh reprised his role

as Poirot in another lavish
star-studded production.

We're incredibly excited about the new

feature film version of Death on the Nile.

So we worked closely with
Michael Green who adapted the book

and also wrote
Murder on the Orient Express.

And Michael is fantastic
at taking the story,

actually not changing it very much,

but making it feel
really relevant to today.

We have an extraordinary cast.

I mean, obviously you have
Ken Branagh as Poirot himself,

but then you've got Gal Gadot,
you've got Armie Hammer,

you got Emma Mackey,

you've got all sorts of stars.

You've got Annette Bening.

And the cast is younger

and that leads to a different atmosphere.

I think fans will enjoy it a lot.

As the 1930s drew to a close,

war clouds were once again
building over Europe.

Agatha, Max, and Rosalind

were living in fashionable
Kensington, London.

Agatha continued to write.

Whenever she could, she would
escape to her childhood home

of Ashfield, in Torquay, Devon.

It was a place that held fond memories.

And much of her childhood was spent,

you know, sort of like, around Ansteys Cove

and Meadfoot Beach doing all the things
that children would enjoy doing.

Her childhood was probably
the happiest time of her life.

Agatha's siblings were much older than her

so she spent most of her early
life alone with her mother.

Mother had quite strong
Christian science beliefs for a while.

And one of her very strong instructions

was that Agatha must not be taught to read.

She lived in her imagination

and she created worlds
and games for herself.

She also famously didn't attend school

and her mother didn't want her to read

until she was seven or eight,

but she secretly taught herself to read

and then kind of I think, spent
most of her time self-educating.

I never had any education.

Apart from being taught
a little arithmetic,

I've had no lessons to speak of at all.

But I found myself making up stories,

and acting the different parts.

Her childhood in Ashfield

had laid the foundations for
her career as a novelist.

As an adult, Devon continued
to spark her imagination,

particularly a hotel she would often visit

further along the coast.

It, in reality, is actually
accessible at low tide

you can walk across the beach

but then at high tide it gets cut off.

This is Burgh Island

and it was to be the inspiration

for the most successful
mystery story of all time.

It's a dark psychological thriller

set on an island from
which there's no escape.

I mean, if I was gonna put my list of three

greatest murder mysteries ever written,

I think it'll almost certainly be on it.

It's an absolutely kind
of irresistible formula

and it doesn't feature Poirot,

it doesn't feature Miss Marple,

but it came out of her mind.

I wrote the book

but it was so enormously difficult to do.

The idea fascinated.

And it is a very difficult
technical accomplishment.

I wrote the book and I was
pleased with what I had made of it.

It was clear, straightforward,
quite baffling,

yet had a perfectly sound
and reasonable explanation.

And Then There Were None

is another Christie closed mystery.

It's 1939 and Europe
teeters on the brink of war.

Ten strangers are invited to Soldier Island

an isolated rock on the Devon coast.

A group of people who
do not know each other,

have all been invited for
a sort of a weekend party

by a man called U.N. Owen.

You are charged

with the following indictments.

And on the first night,
a phonograph is played.

Edward George Armstrong, that you murdered

- Louisa May Clees.
- Who is this?

And a voice accuses them all
of having committed a murder.

They've all killed somebody,
so this is payback.

One by one the guests are murdered.

With no Poirot and no Marple to help them

the guests try to work
out who the killer is.

He's dead.

It's this brilliant, brilliant unraveling.

What does seem to be clear

is that there's no one else on the island

so surely the murderer must
be one of these ten people.

There is no getting away.

There is no little boat, that's
mysteriously disappeared,

so they can't make a
getaway to the mainland.

They're killed off one by one,

according to the nursery
rhyme that's hung on the wall

of all the bedrooms of these poor souls.

This was another first for Agatha,

the use of childish innocence
in a dark and sinister way.

This is a trope that's been used

in countless Hollywood blockbusters,

from The Shining to The Exorcist.

It's like a doll in a
horror film or something.

It takes the absolute innocence,

the childlike innocence
of the nursery rhyme

and utterly subverts it
to the cause of murder.

So you get, "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe,"

"Five Little Pigs," "The Mouse Trap," and,

"And Then There Were None."

Seven little soldiers chopping up sticks

one chopped himself in half
and then there was six.

And Then There Were None

has been adapted more than
any other Christie story.

In 2015, Mammoth Screen and
the Agatha Christie estate

teamed up to produce a huge
scale production for the BBC

to celebrate the 125th
anniversary of Agatha's birth.

It was an amazing
project to, you know, to start with.

It's been so influential,

so many slasher films have been,

you know, you wouldn't have any number of

Nightmare on Elm Street,
Halloween, I think,

without And Then There Were None.

It's her bleakest book,

kind of brilliantly bleak.

It doesn't pull any punches

and it's just a real tour de force.

Agatha Christie was this kind
of unassuming, as you see,

a middle-class lady,

she knew about...

extensively about murder,

and you have to wonder how and why.

I think she was a dark horse.

By 1938, Agatha Christie

was a hugely successful author.

She sold her childhood home of Ashfield

and bought a new property
in Devon called Greenway.

And she looked at it from the river one day

and really did declare it, the
loveliest place in the world.

It's somewhere where she could
very much be Mrs. Mallowan

as well as Agatha Christie,

so without being known
as that famous author.

I mean, it's just magical,
magical. An enchanted place.

But it was also a place where she could

just withdraw from the world.

But her idyllic life at Greenway

was about to come to a jarring halt.

The Second World War began

and the house was requisitioned
by the American Navy.

Agatha braved the bombing out in London.

Pretty much no part of London
was untouched by bombs.

You must've felt the fear.

It must've been a very strange existence.

Despite the constant air
raids, Agatha continued to write.

I never found any difficulty

writing during the war.

I had written two books
during the first years,

this was in anticipation of
my being killed in the raids.

It seemed to me in the
highest degree, likely.

Then in 1942,

she published an Hercule Poirot novel

that was very different
and ingeniously clever.

The murder itself happened
in the distant past.

Of all Agatha Christie's books

I think it is fair to say
that Five Little Pigs

has by far the most memorable murder.

Very few Christie novels have
that kind of tunnel-visioned

focused, constrained structure,

so that, even aside from
everything else it does,

that makes it a quite
unique Christie novel.

Although Five Little Pigs

was her 25th Poirot story,

it was not a conventional Christie.

The murder took place 16 years earlier.

So how would the famous
detective find his clues?

The murder in question was
that of artist Amyas Crale,

whose wife Caroline Crale,
was convicted of his murder.

She protested her innocence,
but then died in prison.

The daughter, Carla, goes
to Hercule Poirot and says,

"I don't think my
mother did it."

And my mother was...

- Caroline, Crale.
- Caroline.

The plot is cleverly constructed

from a series of five interviews

with the prime suspects in the case,

dubbed the five little pigs.

And of course they all have
something slightly different to say.

Five very well-drawn characters.

When she wrote the book,

Agatha was again doing war work

at the pharmacy at
University College Hospital.

Elsa, you should have a sniff.

- Ugh!
- So her choice

of murder weapon,

the poison coniine is no coincidence.

I've never heard of this.

It's distilled from the
flowers of the spotted hemlock.

Agatha was writing about what she knew

not only professionally,
but also personally.

The location of the story is unmistakable.

She has a murder at
what they call "The Battery"

and that's where he dies.

And she describes

you know it from the surround

the way she describes the river
and all that kind of thing.

The setting was her own home, Greenway.

Christie peppers the story
with red herrings and clues.

And Amyas Crale, almost his last words are,

as he drinks his beer,
"everything tastes foul today," he says.

Everything tastes foul today.

And we assume that he's
talking about one thing

but actually he's talking about another

and that's one of the tricks in the book

that make it such a pleasure.

Bloody rheumatism.

Then the bell sounded for lunch
and Meredith came to fetch me.

So we left him...

to die alone.

Amyas!

It is a brilliant piece of construction

the way the five different versions of
events come together,

and Poirot works out from what
was said and what was seen,

and particularly what was on
the look on the artist's face

just before he died.

Five Little Pigs was published in 1942,

two years later and
Europe was at peace again,

but the England of the late 1940s

was a very different place.

Values were changing

and this was reflected
in a Miss Marple story

published in 1950.

It's a slightly comical
look at a changing country

and it tells the story
of an incredibly audacious murder.

A Murder Is Announced
is a Miss Marple story

but this time it's not
based in St. Mary Mead.

This novel is based in the
village of Chipping Cleghorn.

So what I love about A Murder is Announced

is that it's set in a
sleepy post-war village

with all these very, kind of,
charming village types.

So A Murder Is Announced

starts with an advert in the local paper

saying there will be a murder

in this house, at this time,
in this village.

There's going to be a murder.

What time?

Seven o'clock this evening.

Short notice.

So, the reader immediately
sees all these villagers

reading the local paper and going,

"Oh, look it says there's
going to be a murder

at Little Paddocks."

Listen to this! In the Gazette.

"A murder is announced

and will take place on Friday, October 5th

at Little Paddocks at 7:00 P.M."

Then it cuts to the
owner of Little Paddocks

who reacts in much the same way,

"Oh, look, it says there's going
to be a murder here at my house."

I guess I better go and see
if there's any sherry in the house.

Everybody is terribly interested by this

and so they'll find any
excuse so they can to turn up

to see what's gonna actually happen.

Is there going to be a game?

Well. Good evening.

- Good evening.
- Good evening.

Evening.

- Good evening, Ms. Blacklock.
- Good evening.

This is jolly nice, isn't it?

Here we are.

Indeed. We are.

I just popped in to see whether you
might be interested in a kitten.

A kitten?

To pretend they've got
another reason to turn up.

How are your hens laying?

How's this? How's that?

And then somebody turns up and says,

"Oh, am I too late
for the murder?"

Hello Ms. Blacklock?

I'm not too late, am I?
When does the murder begin?

It's nicely done.
It's amusingly done.

'Cause that is actually
just what would happen.

And it starts like a game,
like murder in the dark.

It's beginning.

At the appointed time the lights go out.

Stick 'em up!

Stick 'em up, I tell you!

Isn't it wonderful.

I must say it's quite impressive so far.

And someone is found murdered

but not necessarily the
person you would expect.

- Good God!
- What is it?

The man's dead!

We have to start to wonder

who has manipulated this scenario?

And surely somebody who turned up
to Little Paddocks that evening,

must be our killer.

Conveniently,

Miss Marple happens to be
staying at the local hotel,

and she joins the investigation.

She knows these people.
She knows this setup.

You know Inspector,

some of the best murderers are women,

especially in an English village.

You turn over a stone,
you have no idea what will crawl out.

The story weaves its way

through a maze of double identity

and trademark Christie red herrings.

It's a great detective story.

I think it's one of the
great detective stories

in terms of the plotting.

Every single crucial clue

is absolutely there for you to see

and you do see it, but
you don't work it out.

As with most of Agatha's novels

the setting of A Murder is Announced

is a reflection of British life
at the time she was writing.

It is a really interesting portrayal

of post-Second World War Britain,

some of the hardships, the
rationing that was going on,

and people who maybe before
the war had a certain

style and standard of living

and suddenly things aren't as easy.

It's a world of rationing and coupons and

immigrants from Europe.

All the old hierarchies are
sort of falling apart a bit.

It's... they know a way of life

and they're desperately
trying to keep it up

and it's getting more and more difficult.

They're all after the
same one cleaning woman.

In 1985, the BBC adapted the novel

as part of their first season
of Miss Marple stories.

This was Joan Hickson's third appearance

as the amateur detective.

Miss Marple.

I think we called her Miss Hickson.
I don't think we called her Joan.

Um, and... or maybe you called
her Joan after a while,

but not till you were invited.

And I'd come here pretend to be Julia

and keep peace in the camp.

It was completely awesome.

I mean, the whole thing was awesome.

My parents split up three
years after they were married.

They split us up too.

For an English actor,
it's a sort of rite of passage

to be in an Agatha Christie.

I feel very honored to have
been in them three times

and she just writes such
glorious characters.

But a new era was approaching,

as the 1960s began, a 70
year old Agatha Christie

found the world changing
rapidly around her,

and those changes were a huge
influence on her next novel

a supernatural thriller
populated by witches and poison.

The dawn of the swinging
sixties saw the publication

of a very different type
of Agatha Christie novel.

This was a dark thriller

set against a backdrop of
witchcraft in an English village

and in fashionable London.

I think The Pale Horse"
has a different tone.

The setting and the locations
in the book are different.

It's set in London.

And it's set in 1960s London

and it's got a real feeling of modernity.

It's not a classic detective novel.

And for a lot of her life

Christie had an interest
in the supernatural.

And this is the book where the supernatural

meets murder mystery.

The Pale Horse is a Christie novel

with no Marple and no Poirot.

Instead it tells the story
of historian Mark Easterbrook

who gets drawn into a supernatural world

in the strange village of Much Deeping.

Do you want your fortune told?

It starts out feeling like

the atmosphere is so,
kind of, spooky and ghostly

and there's all this, you know,
magic and supernatural allusions.

The village is full of unusual goings on

that Mark has to unravel.

His name is on a list of people

most of whom have already been killed.

Do you know anyone on this list?

Ormerod, Sandford, Hesketh-Dubois,

Shaw, Tuckerton.

Ardingley.

Mark becomes embroiled
in trying to figure out

what this list means,

who these people are,

what the connection is
between these people.

The names on the list lead Mark Easterbrook

to three witches.

They are somehow connected to this list

but we're not quite sure how.

What do you want?

I want you to set me free.

I played Thyrza Grey and she
is one of the three witches.

She's very good at, sort of, mind reading.

What we do is read cards and tea leaves.

What if that's we all can do?

The main kind of suspects are the witches

because of their links to the supernatural.

And that is something that
naturally brings about

a sense of fear in people.

The Pale Horse was first adapted for TV

in 1996, and again, in 2010.

This second adaptation was markedly
different from the novel

as it added Miss Marple,
played by Julia McKenzie, to the story.

Then in 2019, screenwriter
Sarah Phelps adapted the novel

into a two-part series.

This adaptation also changed

much of Christie's original plot.

I think it says something
about the strength

of Agatha Christie's novels

that something like Pale Horse

has been adapted three times.

Those adaptations are all very
different from each other.

Sarah was actually...

She took some liberties
and made some changes.

And I think it's kind
of a fantastic example

of how Christie stories can be adapted

and work for... in different
ways at different times.

But not all of Christie's fans agreed.

There's definitely a mixed response.

And there's always gonna
be with things like this.

That upsets a lot of people

because that's what they've
come to know, you know?

And that's what they've come to love.

But there's also gonna be a group of people

who are huge fans, who are excited to see

what else can be pulled
out of these classics.

I think there is an argument to be had

that by taking her original stories

and be making them more pertinent to a
modern audience is a good thing.

London at the dawn of the swinging sixties

features strongly in the novel.

It was a world that Agatha
was gradually coming to terms with.

And you can see
the times that she's writing in,

but you can also see how she's, um...
you know, how she's aging,

and you can see her kind of
tut-tutting in the background

as young women are walking down
the King's Road in short skirts

and behaving in ways that I think she
probably thought were pretty scandalous.

And I think that's a nice side
of her that comes through.

Goodbye, Mark.

Don't ever come here again.

By 1975, Agatha Christie
had been a published author

for 55 years.

Hercule Poirot was still her
most popular creation by far.

But during the Second World War,

Agatha was convinced that she
wouldn't survive the bombing.

She was so concerned

that she had written Poirot's
final case, entitled Curtain,

and locked it away in a bank vault

to only be released after her death.

What actually happened in the mid 1970s

was that it became clear
that Agatha Christie,

who was in her eighties by this point,

was not gonna be well enough

to write another Hercule Poirot novel,

and she wasn't particularly
interested in doing it.

And so her daughter, Rosalind,

actually broached the subject and said,

perhaps you want to think
about publishing Curtain.

And so with her mother's permission,

they dug out the typescript

and it was published at the end of 1975.

Curtain was to be Poirot's most surprising

and controversial of cases.

The murder is without a doubt

the most shocking of Agatha's career.

It's quite difficult to talk about Curtain

without giving away the ending.

I mean, it famously is known
that Poirot dies in Curtain.

It is a brilliant novel.

It's not one of my personal favorites.

I think that is purely
because of Poirot dying.

I'm not gonna have a favorite Poirot novel

in which Poirot dies.

Not on my watch.

Curtain is set where it all began,

at the country house of Styles.

But it's a Styles that has
changed over the years.

Styles is no longer
the lovely country house.

It's being run as a kind of boarding house.

It's a very sad place.

There's someone to see you.

Poirot is convalescing at Styles,

only he's old and frail.

In Curtain, Poirot is very
much reduced as a character.

He's in a wheelchair, he's shrunken,

he's very, very old-seeming.

It's a very frail Poirot who we witness

in this final adaptation.

It's somebody that is a
real sort of gut punch

to those of us who've known
him for nearly 25 years at this point.

Hastings?

Oh, Hastings.
My dear, dear, Hastings.

Poirot, old chap.

Oh, mon ami, mon ami.

What Agatha does is she
brings back Hastings

which is absolutely the right thing to do

because Hastings in this book

is a really, really good character.

And how are you?

Me? I am a wreck!

No. A ruin.

Hastings has been in
Argentina with his wife

comes back from there a widower.

And so you see the
affection between the two

and the respect.

The plot is loosely based

on Shakespeare's Othello,

where the character of
Iago has a devilish knack

of manipulating people to commit a murder.

Agatha Christie uses Shakespeare
a great deal in her work.

She's always referencing Shakespeare
in one way or another.

And this book without giving anything away

references Othello but
in an extremely clever way.

Like Five Little Pigs,

the various murders in Curtain

all took place in the past, except one.

And this is the most shocking.

It's a highly unusual one,

I mean, it's a really interesting reason
to kill somebody.

You might even say a good
reason to kill someone.

And of course, that's bound in
with the identity of the killer.

And it comes... the book ends
with a really extraordinary twist.

You feel that Agatha Christie
has managed to achieve

every single twist that is possible

in the course of her long career,

but with Curtain she finds a new one.

The poison works.

And must be stopped.

Curtain was also the
very last episode of ITV's Poirot.

It ran for an incredible
13 series and 70 episodes.

It was very moving to be part of because...

partly because it was the end of a very
long series, a very long commitment.

For actor David Suchet,

this was the last in
a long line of TV dramas.

How are you, old chap?

Playing the Belgian super sleuth.

Not dead yet.

I remember the last scenes that we played

where I would be sitting
at his bedside talking,

were very moving and quite
difficult to do in actual fact,

because it became quite emotional.

It was such an amazing
achievement for David

and we were so happy
for him to complete it.

Uh, it was... So was a bittersweet thing.

It was sad.

In 1975, just after Curtain was published,

the New York Times ran a front
page obituary for Poirot,

the first one ever for
a fictional character.

On the 12th of January 1976,

just four months after
Curtain was published,

Dame Agatha Christie
died peacefully at home

in Wallingford, in Oxfordshire.

Her incredible career spanned 56 years.

And so far, she has sold
over 2 billion books.

She is the most successful
novelist of all time.

I think the relationship
between Agatha Christie

and her audience is second to none,

and it's one of the reasons
why she has survived so well.

In ways of navigating our
way through the 20th century,

I think Agatha Christie is
actually really important.

She chronicles our lives
with wit and murder

in this very...
in this very accessible way,

but it's a real kind of
chronicle of Englishness.

Christie's top priority is telling you

a gripping and entertaining story.

I think she would have been amazed

that we're talking about her 100 years on.

She's not gonna die out

like the other golden age detective writers

because she's simply better.

The more I learn about her,
the more I read her

actually, the more admiration I have,

and actually then the more pride I have.

We continue to talk about her,

we continue to make stuff about her,

we continue to make her books

and, uh, and I think we will do that,

we will always do that.

Agatha Christie will continue to inspire

those who read her books
and watch her adaptations

around the world.

Her legacy will live on
in countless versions

of discerning crime fiction.

Her enduring appeal has
been resolute over a century

and undoubtedly the queen
of crime will challenge

and provoke us for at least
another century to come.