Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024 at 11 p.m. on KPBS TV / Stream now with the PBS app
—Explore the Fascinating World of Agatha Christie—
Surpassed only by the Bible and Shakespeare, Agatha Christie is the most successful writer of all time; her books have sold over a billion copies in English and a billion in translation. How did a refined, upper-class British girl evolve into the queen of crime, poison, and murder?
Two new specials “Inside The Mind Of Agatha Christie,” and “Agatha Christie’s England,” attempt to solve this mystery, exploring the life and times of the woman who transformed crime fiction and continues to win loyal readers across the globe.
“Agatha Christie's England” explores how the settings of Christie’s stories and novels were, in fact, drawn from real places. There is no more quintessentially English writer than Christie. Through her sensational murder mysteries, she created a literary universe that almost singlehandedly shaped the world’s image of England.
Retracing Christie’s footsteps, this new special visits Beacon Cove, where a young Agatha swam with her nephew when he narrowly escaped drowning, the memory of which would be reprised in her 1939 novel "And Then There Were None."
In Ealing, Christie witnessed her great-aunt, affectionately known as Granny, devouring local gossip and news of gruesome murder trials, the blueprint for the author’s fictional world of Miss Marple and the village of St Mary’s Mead.
And the influx of Belgian refugees into her hometown of Torquay during World War I inspired another of Christie’s great characters, Hercule Poirot.
The film explores how the author drew on her surroundings and the people she encountered to create her extraordinary and timeless canon of work. Among the many stops during this tour are Ugbrook House, where she met first husband Archie; Abney Hall, the original inspiration for the author’s inimitable country house murder template; Brown’s Hotel, immortalized in 1965’s "At Bertram’s Hotel"; and her country retreat Greenway, the boathouse of which plays host to a scene in "Dead Man’s Folly."
Narrated by Samantha Bond, both programs are filled with clips from movies and television series based on Agatha Christie novels, as well as home movies and audio recordings of Christie.
Watch On Your Schedule: Both programs are available to stream on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV and Chromecast.
Credits: Produced and directed by Matt Cottingham. Executive Producers are Basi Akpabio, Jonathan Stadlen and Natalie von Hurter. Filmed, produced and directed by Toby Roebuck. Executive Producers are Jonathan Stadlen and Natalie von Hurter.
