The Blog
In a previous column, I complained about the disasters that can result when screen adaptations of Christie novels play fast and loose with the original source material. I stand by my whining. However, I feel that I need to follow up my previous, largely negative article with a companion piece describing what I like about Christie film adaptations.
Although there have been a few hiccups along the way, the Poirot series starring David Suchet has been one of the finest programs on television for two decades and counting. The Joan Hickson Miss Marple series is another gold standard for quality ...
- Posted 16 November 2009 at 9:13a.m. GMT
- 1 comment
Today we unveil the newest Agatha Christie computer game. Dead Man's Folly is the latest of Christie's titles to be adapted as a seek and find game. Fans of the story can play the game for one hour free, by clicking here.
The process of adapting Christie for the PC is a complex one and we thought fans would be interested in hearing from the game developers:
JANE JENSEN – Creative Director, Dead Man’s Folly
• As an award winning game designer, what is it about Agatha Christie stories that make you such a fan?"I've always loved ...
- Posted 14 October 2009 at 2:57p.m. GMT
- 1 comment
Our friends at AudioFile have given us some more reviews for us to share with you. If you like the sound (no pun intended) of what you read, then head on over to their site where you can also download a free Christie short story The Case of the Missing Will (if you are based in the US) and listen to an interview with Hugh Fraser and Rosalind Ayres (everyone).
THE ABC MURDERS, by Agatha Christie, read by Hugh Fraser will be familiar to listeners from the excellent PBS “Mystery” adaptations of Hercule Poirot novels in which he played the ...
- Posted 18 September 2009 at 2:51p.m. GMT
- 1 comment
If you're a fan of Agatha Christie, you've probably read most, if not all, of her stories. But have you tried listening to them? Audiobooks add a new dimension and allow listeners to experience classic Christie stories in new ways. AudioFile, the American magazine dedicated to all things audiobooks, is observing Christie Week by highlighting the best of Agatha Christie audiobooks. To give Christie readers a chance to experience the audio for themselves, we are giving away a free audiobook download of THE CASE OF THE MISSING WILL, read by David Suchet, for the duration of Christie Week ...
- Posted 11 September 2009 at 2:40p.m. GMT
- 0 comments
Fandom is a strange yet wonderful phenomenon. Some professed “fans” of Agatha Christie are content to read the occasional Christie novel once in a while, when they have the time. Other fans feel compelled to read every book that Christie ever wrote. Still other fans seek out every movie and television adaptation of Christie novels ever filmed. Some fans with the time and money to travel actually visits locations from Christie’s life and novels. Then, there are fans like me, who want to help preserve, perpetuate, and polish Christie’s legacy.
Ever since the first film adaptations of Christie ...
- Posted 2 September 2009 at 1:45p.m. GMT
- 12 comments
Those who have been following my account of Agatha Christie’s Notebooks have been asking me what I think is the most interesting element of this treasure trove, and what will I be revealing in my new book?
Amongst the most fascinating entries in the Notebooks are, without doubt, those that contain what I have called the ‘Unused Ideas’. These can be as little as a sentence (Stored blood idea, wrong blood or something added to it [35]) or as much as a dozen pages. There are different murderers from those we know sketched in for many novels, and many ...
- Posted 20 August 2009 at 9:38a.m. GMT
- 11 comments
How did Nadine Boynton know about the Orient Express case in Appointment With Death?
By Chris Chan
(SPOILER WARNING! THIS ESSAY CONTAINS POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOR MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, CARDS ON THE TABLE, AND THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD. READ WITH CAUTION.)
In Appointment with Death, the suspect Nadine Boynton asks Poirot to cease his investigation of her mother-in-law’s death, claiming that bringing the killer to justice would further destroy the lives of those who had suffered under the twisted matriarch’s mental sadism. In order to justify her pleas for Poirot to abandon this case, she cites ...
- Posted 6 July 2009 at 6:58a.m. GMT
- 6 comments
The movie, stage, and television adaptations of Christie’s work are well known and often discussed amongst Christie fans. A fourth medium, radio, is much more obscure and often ignored. Two of the major overviews of Christie’s work and adaptations of it, Dick Riley and Pam McAllister’s The New Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Agatha Christie, and Dennis Sanders and Len Lovallo’s The Agatha Christie Companion, discuss the movies, plays, and television adaptations, but both ignore the radio dramas.
This is a terrible shame, because some of the best and most interesting adaptations– as well as some ...
- Posted 14 May 2009 at 6:52a.m. GMT
- 5 comments
SPOILER WARNING! THIS ESSAY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE BIG FOUR AND CURTAIN. DO NOT READ THIS ESSAY IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THESE BOOKS
We know very little about Hercule Poirot’s family life, and the few details that Poirot reveals may not be reliable, since he often makes up details about his wife to advance his investigations. For example, in one story in Poirot Investigates, Poirot lies and claims to have a sick wife in order to gain entrance into an apartment. There are a few references to his career as a Belgian police officer, but he rarely speaks ...
- Posted 6 April 2009 at 9:38a.m. GMT
- 3 comments
As some of you may already know, my silence of late on the Website is due to my commitments to things Christiean elsewhere. In short, I am writing a book about Agatha Christie, specifically Agatha Christie and her plotting Notebooks. This is probably the last aspect of Agatha Christie that has not already been discussed in a book. We have had books on her life, her literary output, her husband, her disappearance; we have bought quiz books, travel books, film books, Mousetrap books; books about her poisons, her characters, her cover designs, her garden; biographies of Poirot and Miss Marple ...
- Posted 3 April 2009 at 11:41a.m. GMT
- 5 comments