All language subtitles for Agatha.Christie.100.Years.of.Poirot.and.Miss.Marple.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

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.

THEY SCREAM

In each tantalising mystery,

Agatha's much-loved characters,
Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple,

have astonished us with their powers
of deduction.

Oh, yes...

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.

And how on earth
did Agatha Christie come up

with each outrageously
compelling plot?

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,

a new Hollywood version
of Death On The Nile

modernises the story
for the 21st century

as this lavish,
star-studded trailer shows.

So, we take a look back
over a century,

at ten of Agatha's greatest works...

...with access to the family
archive...

...we hear from the great lady
herself...

AGATHA: 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, there'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
"lt 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?

You know, there are shows whether
it's Death in Paradise or Vera...

"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 enthral
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 the 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.

AGATHA: 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

and 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 took the bet seriously.

AGATHA: 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.

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.

READS:

And his appearance wasn't the only
thing unfortunate about him,

this very unconventional hero
had some unexpected traits...

Meticulous.

Arrogant. Curious.

Infuriating. Tricky.

...as well as a deeply ironic name.

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
ground-breaking 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,

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 lnglethorp,

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!

As she was writing her novel,

Agatha was moved from general
nursing work

to the more specialised 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.

SHE MOANS

When Mrs lnglethorp is found
poisoned,

Agatha uses her specialist knowledge
to cleverly develop the mystery.

SHE EXHALES

Hastings, being there, suggests
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 are
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 lnglethorp
ate very little for supper. Yes.

Hmm.

One of those curious little
facts, mon ami.

We put it here.

We are possibly half a step
ahead of Hastings,

because he'll say something like,

"lf 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 tantalised 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,

cos Agatha, in her lifetime,
has said, "l'm 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.

LTV'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.

David Suchet's approach to the role
has become the stuff of TV legend.

It's well known that he remains
in character a lot of the time.

I don't think I ever spoke to
I'm on the set as himself,

he was the character. When he was
having lunch, he WAS the character.

There was a kind of moment of truth
when we did Death In The Clouds,

some of which was filmed in Paris.

There's a big French crew
as well as some English,

and 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 Parisian way.

HE BURBLES

And, of course, David didn't get it

because he doesn't speak French
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 ground-breaking
element that,

like the book itself,
almost didn't happen.

It was actually suggested
by the publishers.

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.

And yet, Madame lnglethorp 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...his way
of doing things.

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 murderous television dramas,

like Death In Paradise.

Following the success
of her first novel,

Agatha Christie wrote four
more books.

By 1922, 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.

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 Abbot.

I will kill you!

Another resident of King's Abbot
turns out to be

none other than the famous
detective Hercule Poirot.

Retired and without
his sidekick, Hastings.

I think Christie realised pretty
soon that, actually,

she was quite encumbered
by Hastings.

So, she was quite happy to marry
him off and send him the Argentine.

TELEPHONE RINGS

The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd
is narrated in the first person

by Poirot's neighbour Dr Sheppard.

Dr Sheppard.

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.

I saw something quite
peculiar just now. Really?

He was talking to a girl.

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.

AGATHA: The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd,
has been a very decided success.

Partly because of having found
an original twist

for a detective story plot.

This which I must say I owe mostly

to my brother-in-law's
chum's remark.

As a matter of fact, the same idea,
though in a different form

was suggested to me by no less a
person, Lord Louis Mountbatten.

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...

...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 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.

Just after the publication of
Roger Ackroyd, Agatha's mother died.

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.

Must have 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 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
licence.

Of Agatha Christie,
there was no sign.

After 11 clays, 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.

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!

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 our 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.

The 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.

Suspicious.

Sceptical. Inquisitive.

Self-effacing.

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.

AGATHA: 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.

AGATHA: But she had this in common
with my grandmother

that although a completely
cheerful person,

she always expected the worst
of anyone and everything,

and was, with almost frightening
accuracy,

usually proved right.

Hardly ever.

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 recognise 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.

Here.

Everybody loathes him, he's making
enemies left, right and centre,

so he's kind of 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...

ls he doing Mrs Protheroe, too?

The colonel is discovered
in his study, shot in the head.

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."

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 finalised.

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.

In Iraq, Agatha discovered
a love of archaeology,

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 glamour and intrigue,

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

Because, instead of travelling
by steamship,

Agatha decided to take the train.
TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

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 has acclaim to being
Christie's masterpiece.

The solution is
one of the cleverest,

if not THE cleverest in the whole
of mystery fiction.

The Calais coach on the train

is full of an eclectic
bunch of characters,

from princesses to travelling
salesmen.

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

He says, "l 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.

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

There's very much a sense
of that claustrophobia.

In the book, Agatha cleverly traps
her cast of characters

in the enclosed environment
of a train carriage.

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.

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 in a million years.

The solution sees Poirot
facing an interesting dilemma

as the recently murdered Mr Ratchett
was a very unpleasant man.

No! No!

How far do you human beings have the
right to bring about justice

if legaljustice has let them down?

Which is a really,
really big question

and the whole book
turns on that idea.

Murder On The Orient Express

has been made into two big-budget
feature films.

Most recently in 2015,

we can see actor-director
Kenneth Branagh's portrayal

made Poirot more debonair with more
hair,

both on his head and on his face.

From the minute I saw Kenneth
Branagh being Poirot,

I believed in him as Poirot.

But back in 1974,
director Sidney Lumet

dramatically propelled
Christie's novel

into the Hollywood mainstream.

And, as this clip shows,

he revolutionised the genre
by persuading

some of the world's
greatest actors to join the cast.

I was yarning with young
what's-his-name there,

McQueen, in his compartment.

So they lie. Why, why why?

Albert Finney's one-and-only
portrayal of Poirot

was thought to be closest to
Agatha's version -

clever, egotistical and vain.

I was hoping someone other
than myself would say that.

As we can see from this clip,
his fake nose

and padding helped him to embody
the famous detective.

I came to various conclusions,

the clumsy cliche of the slashed
watch.

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 premiere in 1974.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Miss de Bellefort!
I'll shoot you like a dog -

like the dirty dog you are!

GUNSHOT

Mr Pennington!

Linnet, er, cops it.

Pistol...

Fortunately one of the fellow
passengers

is none other than
Hercule Poirot.

Death On The Nile was first
adapted for the big screen in 1978.

No, nothing.

Peter Ustinov portrayed a more
light-hearted and bumbling Poirot.

I would like to see everybody
please, in the saloon,

when all will be revealed.

This extravagant production
attracted an all-star cast

as can be seen during one of the
last scenes of the film.

You'll feel better.
Very well, where's my stole?

In 2020, Kenneth Branagh has
reprised his role as Poirot.

As we can see from the glossy
trailer,

the look and feel of the new film

is very different to previous
adaptations.

This lavish film presents
a glamorous Hollywood twist

on an 80-year-old story.

We have an extraordinary cast and,
obviously,

you have Ken Branagh
as Poirot himself,

but then, you've got Gal Gadot,

you've got Armie Hammer,
you've 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.

This elaborate trailer is stylised
and cut with pace

for dramatic effect with Kenneth
Branagh

playing a more suave
and sophisticated Poirot.

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 Anstey's 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.

AGATHA: 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.

This was 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.

THUNDER RUMBLES

It's an absolutely
kind of irresistible formula.

It doesn't feature Poirot,

it doesn't feature Miss Marple,

but it came out of her mind.

AGATHA:

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.

PA: You are charged for the
following indictments...

PA: Edward George Armstrong, that
you murdered Louisa Mary Clees...

Who is this?

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.

THEY BREATHE HEAVI LY

It's this brilliant, brilliant
unravelling.

There is no getting away.
There is no little boat -

that's mystery disappeared,

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

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.

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 Mousetrap...

THUNDER RUMBLES
..and And Then There Were None.

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 her bleakest book,
kind of brilliantly bleak.

It's a... It doesn't
pull any punches

and it's just a real tour de force.

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.

I mean, it's just a 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 War began and the house
was requisitioned

by the American Navy. Agatha braved
the bombing out in London.

Despite the constant air raids,
Agatha continued to write.

AGATHA: 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,

which seemed to be, 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.

Very few Christie novels have
that kind of tunnel-vision focus,

constrained structure.

So that, you know, 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, "l don't think
my mother did it."

And my mother is 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.

Ergh!

Her choice of murder weapon,

the poison coniine,
is no coincidence.

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.

The setting was her own home,
Greenway.

Christie peppers the story
with red herrings and clues.

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!

CROCKERY SHATTERS

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.

Yet, it tells the story
of an incredibly audacious murder.

A Murder ls 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 ls Announced

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

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

So, A Murder ls Announced starts
with an advert

in the local paper saying,
"There will be a murder

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

What time?

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 7pm."

Then it cuts 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 find any excuse that
they can to turn up,

to see what's going actually happen.
ls there going to be a game?

Well, good evening.
Evening.

Evening.
Good evening.

This is jolly nice, isn't it?

Here we are.

I just popped in to see whether
you might be interested

in a...in a kitten.
SNIGGERING

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

Hello, Miss Blacklock!
I'm not too late, am I?

When does the murder begin?

It's nicely done,
it's amusingly done

cos that is actually just
what would happen.

CLOCK CHIMES THE HOUR

ALL EXCLAIM

It's beginning!
PANICKED CHATTER

At the appointed time,
the lights go out.

SCREAMING, GLASS SHATTERS

Isn't it wonderful? I must say,
it's quite impressive so far.

THREE GUNSHOTS, SCREAMING

And someone is found murdered,

but not necessarily the person
you would expect.

Good God!
The man's dead.

Conveniently Miss Marple happens
to be staying at the local hotel

and she joins the investigation.

You know, Inspector, some of the
best murderers are women,

especially in an English village.

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

The story weaves its way through
a maze of double identity

and trademark Christie red herrings.

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 ls 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.

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

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.

CHOKING

This was Joan Hickson's third
appearance as the amateur detective.

I think we called her Miss Hickson,
I don't think we called herjoan.

And... Or maybe you called
herjoan after a while,

but not till you were invited.

And I'd come here, pretend to be
Julia and keep peace in the camp.

No, 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 honoured 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 '60s

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.

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.

It's starts out feeling like,
you know,

the sort of atmosphere is
so kind of spooky and ghostly,

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

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.

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

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

All we do is read cards
and tea leaves.

What if that's all we 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.

Sarah was actually... She took some
liberty and made some changes.

And I think it's a kind of fantastic
example of how

Christie's 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 going to be
with things like this.

That upsets a lot of people

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

and that what's they've come to
love. But there's also going to 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 maybe making them more pertinent
to a modern audience

is a good thing.

London, at the dawn of
the swinging '60s,

features strongly in the novel.

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

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.

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 is a brilliant novel. It's not
one of my personal favourites,

I think that is purely
because of Poirot dying.

I'm not going to have a favourite
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.

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.

Hastings?

Oh, Hastings! My dear, dear
Hastings!

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 good character.

Me? I am a wreck - no, a ruin!

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 used 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 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... Ah, 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.

Oh, the poison works
and must be stopped.

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

It ran for an incredible
13 series and 70 episodes.

For actor David Suchet, this was the
last in a long line of TV dramas...

...playing the Belgian super-sleuth.

Not dead yet.

It was such an amazing
achievement for David

and we were so happy
for him to complete it.

So, it was a bittersweet thing.
It was, 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 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 two billion books.

She is the most successful
novelist of all time.

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

I think Agatha Christie's
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.

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

the more admiration I have,
and then, the more pride I have.

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.

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