Murder on the Orient Express

Michael Maloney stars as Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in Lucy Bailey’s new production of the UK & Ireland Tour of Murder on the Orient Express. Agatha Christie Ltd and Fiery Angel have brought Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic to the stage this year. It opened on 6 September at the Lowry in Salford and is running through to 3 May 2025 at the Cheltenham Everyman.

Michael Maloney’s extensive film and television work includes Belfast, Iron Lady, Young Victoria, Notes on a Scandal, Branagh's Hamlet, Zefferelli's Hamlet, Truly Madly Deeply, The Crown, Magpie Murders, The Trial of Christine Keeler, The Five, River, The White Queen, Bonekickers, Empire, The Jury and Love on a Branch Line. On the stage, his many roles for the RSC include Edgar, Romeo and Prince Hal. For the National, he has appeared in Light Shining in Buckinghamshire as Cromwell, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground as Lewis Carroll and Once in a While the Odd Thing Happens as Benjamin Britten. In the West End, he has appeared in Peer Gynt (in the title role), Can You Hear Me at the Back? and Taking Steps.

Joining Michael Maloney are Bob Barrett as Monsieur Bouc, Mila Carter as Countess Elena Andreyni, Rebecca Charles as Greta Ohlsonn, Debbie Chazen as Princess Dragomiroff, Simon Cotton as Samuel Ratchett, Jean-Baptiste Fillon as Michel, Christine Kavanagh as Helen Hubbard, Paul Keating as Hector MacQueen, Iniki Mariano as Mary Debenham and Rishi Rian as The Colonel. Also in the cast are Jasmine Raymond, Alex Steadman and Beth Tuckey.

Ken Ludwig may well be the most performed playwright of his generation. He has had six productions on Broadway and eight in London’s West End. His 34 plays and musicals are staged around the world and throughout the United States every night of the year. They have been produced in over 20 languages in more than 30 countries, and many have become standards of the American repertoire.

His first play, Lend Me a Tenor, won two Tony Awards and was called “one of the classic comedies of the 20th century” by The Washington Post. Crazy For You was on Broadway for five years, on the West End for three, and won the Tony and Olivier Awards for Best Musical. His adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is being performed around the world and his musical Crazy For You is currently touring Japan.

In addition, he has won the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theatre, two Laurence Olivier Awards, two Helen Hayes Awards, the Charles MacArthur Award, and the Edgar Award for Best Mystery of the Year. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award for writing the Kennedy Center Honors. His other plays include Moon Over Buffalo; Leading Ladies; Baskerville; Sherwood; Twentieth Century; Dear Jack, Dear Louise; A Fox on the Fairway; A Comedy of Tenors; The Game’s Afoot Shakespeare in Hollywood; and Moriarty. They have starred, among others, Alec Baldwin, Carol Burnett, Tony Shaloub, Joan Collins, and Kristin Bell.

His book How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare, published by Penguin Random House, has been a bestseller and is coming out this year in a new, expanded edition. It won the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book of the Year. His essays on theatre are published in the Yale Review, and he gives the Annual Ken Ludwig Playwriting Scholarship at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.

His first opera, Tenor Overboard, opened at the Glimmerglass Festival in July 2022. His most recent world premieres were Lend Me A Soprano and Moriarty, and his newest plays and musicals include Pride and Prejudice Part 2: Napoleon at Pemberley, Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, Beginner’s Luck and Easter Parade.

He has been commissioned to write plays by the Agatha Christie Estate, the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Globe Theatre, and the Bristol Old Vic.

For more information visit www.KenLudwig.com

Lucy Bailey studied English at Oxford University where she directed the world premiere of Lessness by Samuel Beckett in consultation with the author.

Recent productions include: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Northampton / Fiery Angel, UK Tour); Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare’s Globe); Oleanna and Switzerland (Theatre Royal Bath & West End); Gaslight (Bill Kenwright, UK Tour), Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution (site specific production, London’s County Hall), Ghosts (Royal & Derngate Northampton); Cave (a site specific opera for London Sinfonietta and Royal Opera House, at the Print Works London); Comus, A Masque In Honour Of Chastity (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Globe), Kenny Morgan (Arcola, London).

Lucy co-founded The Print Room a new venue in Notting Hill Gate and was artistic director from 2010 - 2012. Shows she directed include: Fabrication, Snake in the Grass, Kingdom of Earth and Uncle Vanya with Iain Glen. She was co-founder and co-artistic director of the gogmagogs (1995 – 2007) a music theatre company comprising seven string players. She directed/devised seven shows with the company which toured through UK, Europe, Scandinavia, Brazil, Australia and the US.

Other credits include: Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, As You Like It, The Maid’s Tragedy (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Winter’s Tale, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar (RSC/ Stratford/London/ New York); Baby Doll, The Night Season (National Theatre/West End); The Graduate, Great Expectations, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Dial M for Murder (West Yorkshire Playhouse/West End/ UK tour); Love From A Stranger , Gaslight (Royal & Derngate/UK tour); The Importance of Being Earnest (West End/UK tour); Fortunes Fool (London’s Old Vic); King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath); The Beggar’s Opera (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Private Lives, Glass Eels, Comfort Me with Apples (Hampstead); Don’t Look Now (Crucible, Sheffield/Lyric Hammersmith); Tonight at 8.30, Stairs to the Roof (Chichester Festival Theatre).

Opera credits include: Gudrun Fier Sang (Copenhagen dry dock), Jenufa (English National Opera); Cheryoumushki 1958 (Lyric Hammersmith); Noyes Fludde, Triptych, Mary of Egypt (Aldeburgh Festival); Pasolini’s Teorema (Maggio Musicale Florence/Munich Biennale/Queen Elizabeth Hall); Mitridate (Wexford Opera Festival).