Why didn't they ask Christie?

Agatha Christie is still considered the Grande Dame of thrillers. She wrote 66 crime novels and short story collections. She is the creator of two of the most enduring figures in crime literature: Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple.

Simply based on her sales figures, you might come to the conclusion that Agatha Christie knew how to construct a believable plot that readers would understand if they reached the last page of her thrillers. The stories are powerful and enduring. Only fools would dare to change them. And that's precisely what happens these days.

The estate of Agatha Christie is managed (yes, there's the dreaded key word) by Agatha Christie Limited. Their prime objective is to extract as much money out of Christie's thrillers as is humanly possible.

In 2013, Agatha Christie Limited contracted Sophie Hannah to write new stories that featured Hercule Poirot. Hannah's first try, 'The Monogram Murders' (2014), totally failed to catch the essence of Agatha Christie. The Guardian concluded, wrapped in one deadly sentence, that 'For all its approximation to an Agatha Christie, the book actually bears very little resemblance to one.' Yet, the book made enough money for Agatha Christie Limited to give Sophie Hannah the opportunity to keep writing more books that feature 'her' Hercule Poirot.

In 2013, the BBC acquired the rights to eight new adaptations of Christie's mysteries. Most of them are (and will be) created by Sarah Phelps and that was a disastrous decision. Phelps decided that Agatha Christie's stories could be adapted with new backstories, new storylines and even new killers. Hilary Strong, chief executive of Agatha Christie Limited, which looks after the author's estate, said Phelps had brought a 'new way of interpreting Christie for a modern audience'. That's one way of phrasing it, but the simple fact is that Phelps ruins the legacy of Agatha Christie by mutilating her stories.

If you decide, as Sarah Phelps did, to use the name and fame of Agatha Christie as bait for viewers and simply use the titles and part of her storylines, my advice would be not to go that way. It's sacrilege.

One should be more creative than Sophie Hannah and Sarah Phelps, and search for other ways to find a new audience for the enduring mysteries of Agatha Christie. One way is to create a series of new mysteries featuring a younger Agatha Christie, a younger Miss Marple or even a younger Hercule Poiroit as a sleuth.

The creators of the Frankie Drake Mysteries had the right idea when they cast Honeysuckle Weeks as a younger Agatha Christie.

And yes, I know there have been several recent - and rather erratic - endeavours, such as 'Agatha Christie and the Truth of Murder' (2018), where Ruth Bradley played Agatha Christie. Once. We can also mention 'Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar'  (2019), where Lyndsey Marshal played Agatha Christie. Once. Or 'Agatha and the Midnight Murders' (2020), where the great Helen Baxendale took the leading part.