In recent weeks and months, I’ve become increasingly aware of the ongoing, apparently inexhaustible, appeal of a particular and very famous writer of crime fiction.
You see, this autumn, myself and my wife had the absolute treat of enjoying Agatha Christie’s play Black Coffee in Southport, Merseyside – a play that had been written almost a hundred years ago!
A few weeks after that, we were interested in getting tickets for probably Christie’s most famous play The Mousetrap – the longest running stage production in history – at the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton. However, we soon learnt that the week-long run had more or less sold out, with only a few seats at the rear fringes of the theatre available.
As the play appears to be constantly on tour, we decided to wait and bag the best seats when the next tour inevitably returns. Of course, I knew on one level that Agatha Christie was both very famous and very popular as a writer, but all of this got me thinking … Why are Christie’s works not just popular but revered and cherished by countless generations of audiences?
Agatha Christie (or Dame Agatha Mary Clarrisa Christie née Miller to be precise) is the world’s third best selling author ever, with sales of her work only being exceeded by The Bible and the works of Shakespeare!
Her books and plays have been translated into more than a hundred languages. Her stories have sold around two billion books worldwide (that’s a billion in the English language and another billion in translation). And, her works have inspired countless television, cinema and stage adaptations.
The solving of serious crime, in particular murder, together with all the horror, intense emotions and mystery of such events, has no doubt fascinated audiences both ancient and modern.
However, the crime “thriller” most likely originated in the Industrial Revolution of the early to mid- nineteenth century. Urbanisation and the movement of people from rural areas to the towns and newly expanding cities bred increasing uncertainty, suspicion, and … crime.
As factory and service workers now mixed with strangers on a daily basis, major cities such as London and New York established dedicated police forces, in 1829 and 1845 respectively. Conditions were quickly becoming “just right” for the crime novel genre to flourish. Crime was one of the great issues of Victorian Britain with crime rising rapidly in the early part of the century.
Crime writing also quickly expanded, with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet published in 1887, the first novel to feature Sherlock Holmes, commonly acknowledged (with due respect to Christie’s creation Poirot and Miss Marple!) as the world’s most famous detective.
Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920. What followed was over half a century of novels, plays and short story collections, with the 1920s and 30s being labelled the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”. Christie and her contemporaries Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers became collectively known as the “Queens of Crime”.
So why does Christie’s work in particular remain so extraordinarily popular? A significant proportion of current TV schedules and on demand or streaming services, is taken up by reruns of adaptations of her plays and novels, as well as frequent newly commissioned reimaginings of her most famous stories, and even “new” fiction written in the style of Christie.
Just why has admiration for her writing simply grown and grown, and looks likely to continue growing in the years ahead? Well, there is no doubt that Christie the woman, created a unique mystique around her name during her lifetime.
So many elements of her life fascinate us including: Greenway, the beautiful and historic Georgian House her family used as a holiday home; her upbringing in hotels in Paris, Brittany and the Pyrenees; her global travels and archaeological adventures in the Middle East with second husband Max Mallowan. And of course most prominently, her still unexplained 11 day disappearance which made national headlines.
Christie’s work focuses strongly on the problem solving dimension of crime, almost like a sophisticated, stylised version of the board game Cluedo. Her works are a puzzle we must solve.
Dame Agatha fools us into thinking we can identify the killer by the various stock types of men and women she introduces us to. Indeed, her characterisations are the most critiqued aspect of her work. We soon realise however that it is us, not Christie, who have resorted to stereotyping and as a result we very often get it wrong!
Her novels are full of red herrings and misdirection, together with the really important clues and skilful hints, making it difficult for readers to separate background scene setting from vital information. They also involve everyday, familiar – almost comforting – situations such as discussion of train timetables, afternoon tea and suburban lanes, with humour also thrown in.
Finally, there are the individual characters themselves whose personalities, character and modus operandi we know and love such as Ariadne Oliver, Parker Pyne, Captain Hastings, Superintendent Battle, Tommy and Tuppence … and most of all, of course, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple!
Agatha Christie’s allure, fame and ability to sell books and theatre tickets really is legendary, and it shows no sign of changing anytime soon.
A Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to all our supporters and patrons!
Take care
Neil
PS: if you love Agatha Christie’s work, you might like to know that we here at RADS are putting on a deliciously indulgent Dinner Theatre Event, which includes dinner (Saturday 17th February 2023) or Afternoon Tea (Sunday 18th February 2023).
This features two thrilling short Agatha Christie plays, The Rats and The Patient. Please see our online ticket store for further details: www.ticketsource.co.uk/radsdrama.
Reformed Allerton Dramatic Society (RADS) 
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