Agatha & Poirot: Partners in Crime

There's nothing more British than Agatha Christie.

There's nothing more British than Agatha Christie.

Since the publication of her first book 100 years ago,

Since the publication of her first book 100 years ago,

she's been delighting us with fiendishly clever murder mysteries

set in the charming villages and grand homes of our nation.

Yet it took someone quite un-British to solve the crimes in her stories.

Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective with a brain like no other.

'Agatha launched him into the world a century ago,

'and they've been partners in crime ever since.

'Like millions of others, I adore them both,

'but Agatha Christie, just like Poirot,

'didn't give much away.'

And both seem to be, well, mysterious cases.

So now I want to turn the investigation back onto them.

'Agatha Christie is the Queen of crime.'

This master of storytelling.

She is on it every time, every page, every book.

'And Hercule Poirot was always by her side,

'on page and on screen.'

Hercule Poirot is a private detective.

Hercule Poirot is irresistible, he has star quality.

He has this extraordinary brain.

Always I am right, it is so invariable it startles me.

'But how do they conquer the world together?

'With the help of some famous faces...'

Loosen your belts... LAUGHTER

..it's gonna get messy.

'A host of experts...'

She describes cleaning them with a bit of dental equipment

and her face cream.

Weapons, wounds, trace evidence, it's all there.

'..access to her family and their private archives...'

I think she will always be here

and while she's always here, Poirot will be here.

'..and the locations that shaped Agatha's work.'

This was nicknamed "the best hotel west of The Ritz."

'This is the story of the greatest crime duo ever.'

I think I Agatha Christie and Poirot will be forever.

No-one else has come close. They just haven't.

Agatha Christie was a Devon girl,

she drew upon the county of her childhood

for so many of her stories.

Creaky country houses, the vicars on their bicycles,

and the chocolate box villages with a secret behind every door.

It's not the obvious home for a Belgian detective

with a fondness for order and cleanliness.

But it's in Devon that Agatha found Poirot.

'Agatha Christie was born in 1890 in Torquay,

'a popular holiday spot for wealthy Victorians.'

Devon was a massive part of her life,

a part of her being, I think.

She certainly felt happier here than anywhere else.

'Her family lived in a large villa

'with spacious grounds on the edge of town.'

That genteel, upper-middle-class childhood that she had,

it's there through the books.

'Agatha's father died when she was 11.

'From this point on, she became incredibly close with her mother.'

Agatha Christie's home life was a matriarchy

that the women were in positions of power

and that the women held a lot of importance.

They're right there and they have big personalities

and they have the same desires and needs as the men

and I really, I love that about her writing.

'Agatha had a brother and sister, 10 and 11 years older than her,

'meaning she grew up largely in her own company.'

She was like an only child, because she spent so much time on her own

and in her own world, playing her own games.

I'm an only child and I know that, growing up,

I didn't have anybody else to play with.

And making up stories and acting out different scenarios

and coming up with different characters.

'Although Agatha's mother

'decided against giving her a formal education,

'she still found her own sources of knowledge.'

Agatha Christie taught herself a lot.

She was obviously incredibly motivated,

she was obviously incredibly clever, incredibly imaginative.

'By her late teens, Agatha had started writing as a hobby.

'Before long, she had short stories and poems

'published in local magazines,

'but for her talent to become a career,

'it took a challenge from her older sister.'

I gather that she'd been reading a lot of murder mysteries

and saying, you know, "I could do this,"

and her sister said, "Well, why don't you?"

To get the best out of someone, you need to be challenged,

you need to be pushed to become the best

and I think it was interesting seeing Agatha Christie

being pushed by her older sister to write a novel.

'Even much later in life,

'Agatha would describe the origin of her career

'as an accident.'

Why are you so fascinated by crime?

I don't know that I'm really fascinated by it,

I just began writing about it,

then one continues, doesn't one, usually?

I always liked detective stories.

'Agatha's debut novel, The Mysterious Affair At Styles,

'was published in the UK in 1921.'

An immediate success, it introduced the world to someone

who would go on to be Agatha's longest life companion,

Hercule Poirot.

A retired police officer from Belgium,

Poirot was like no other detective seen before in fiction.

He does drop in to Styles perfectly formed.

Poirot is incredibly methodical, he's incredibly, obviously, clever.

He's also meticulous, he's also vain,

but at the end of the day, he has a twinkle

and you respect him.

Hercule Poirot is one of the greatest creations

in all literary fiction. There's no question of it.

'Agatha Christie would write 33 novels,

'three plays and 69 short stories featuring Poirot.'

She's sold on all four corners of the earth,

she's sold more books than any other novelist.

She's, you know, been published in more languages

pretty much than anyone, it's a pretty extraordinary story.

I imagine there is a generation of crime writers

that would hold Agatha Christie up as their leading light.

I'm the author of the Murder Most Unladylike mystery series.

My detective Hazel has a lot to do with Poirot,

and the logic puzzles they solve,

the kind of very tight, enclosed murder mysteries they solve

are really, completely based on Agatha Christie's mysteries.

So I'm an author who is really inspired by her.

I am the author of four continuation novels starring Hercule Poirot.

I first discovered Poirot when I read Murder On The Orient Express.

It felt like a sort of Eureka moment.

I have loved him ever since.

'Poirot is also the star of a major Hollywood movie franchise

'starring Sir Kenneth Branagh.'

My name is Hercule Poirot,

and I am probably the greatest detective in the world.

'Yet it's through the television that most of us know Poirot.

'From 1989 to 2013,

'the iconic detective was beamed into our living rooms every week

'with David Suchet taking the lead role.'

The original series was a huge Sunday night treat.

Beautifully produced, wonderful production values,

a fantastic lead actor.

It seems as if you have thought of everything, Monsieur Doyle,

except for one thing...

Hercule Poirot.

They've allowed us, the televisual sort of generation,

to enter into Agatha's world

in a way that no-one would ever have dreamt of.

Me and Monsieur Poirot have met before.

There's no man's judgement I'd sooner take than his.

If I'm not greatly mistaken, he's got something up his sleeve.

Well, I will tell you this.

If you arrest Monsieur Alfred Inglethorp,

it will bring you no kudos.

The case against him will be dismissed comme ca.

It is about nostalgia, it's about old England.

It gives the audience a sense of pleasure

to see pretty countryside and lovely costumes.

I love the fact that you can sort of smell

the cigarette smoke in the air,

you know when those women walk into the room

there will be a rustle of silk.

I think we can agree I'm not short on motive.

Or opportunity.

By your own admission, you enter the compartment

of Madame Ruth Kettering and rifle through her possessions.

Oh, you had the desire, Senora, and the passion necessaire,

to commit a crime of such atrocity.

Est ca c'est la verite?

'Through the long-running ITV series, Poirot reached an audience

'far beyond anything Agatha could have imagined

'when she introduced him to the British public in 1921.

'Like Agatha, Poirot was formed in Torquay,

'where locals are immensely proud of their connection to both of them.

'At the town's museum, manager Carl Smith

'has been given access to some of Agatha's private notebooks

'that reveal secrets of how she created her stories and characters.'

In front of me, I have a copy of a handwritten article

that was written by Agatha Christie in 1938.

"How did the character of Hercule Poirot come into being?

"It was the early autumn of 1914,

"Belgian refugees were in most country places.

"Why not have a Belgian refugee,

"a former shining light of the Belgian police force."

'During World War I, 250,000 Belgian refugees entered Britain,

'many settling in Agatha's county of Devon.'

Her work always seemed to be organic and coming out of a real scenario.

And then she would sort of secrete those people that she watched...

in the characters that she wrote.

Belgium had a very special meaning to the British.

Poor little Belgium was a phrase that was used all the time.

British middle-class families knitted socks for Belgian children.

It was a thing, you know, that everyone would have recognised.

They had a victimhood, so there was a dignity about Poirot.

He wants to know why we have to speak English all of the time.

He finds it tiring.

Hmm.

Because, Monsieur Van der Stadt, in this country, we are the guests.

If we are to gain the confidence of the natives,

we must learn their ways.