If you’ve watched some of the more recent made-for-TV Agatha Christie adaptations over the last five years (and Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot movies, depending on your opinion), you’ll know that not everybody is out for the job. Thankfully, Netflix has called Chris Chibnall in to head up Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials.
Clearly, the man knows his way around an impeccable crime drama. He’s been behind Life on Mars, multiple episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood, and a little-known TV show called Broadchurch.
Obviously, when the chance came up to pick Chibnall’s brains about all things Christie – turns out he’s as much of a geek about the author as I am – I couldn’t turn it down. Along with the help of Freeman, we were able to dig a little deeper into Christie’s classic characters, discuss making things effortlessly modern, and a forgotten BBC series you need to stream straight after.
‘This could bring Agatha Christie to a new generation’
“I had read lots of Agatha Christie when I was growing up, and then I got the chance to reread some when this came up, and the characters in Seven Dials just felt like the Agatha Christie I loved, but also different,” Chibnall explains.
“It’s got a different energy, mainly because you’re with the character of Bundle (Mia McKenna-Bruce), and the energy, wit and humor that that the piece has. I thought that was something I’d not seen on screen, and I thought it was a great book that could then bring Agatha Christie to a new generation. It’s not Poirot, Miss Marple, but something else. Battle is a classic character from the Christie canon.”
Even I didn’t realize that Inspector Battle (Freeman) actually appears across four separate books, although these don’t officially tie together as a series. But even so, there’s definitely room for a prequel if you look between the lines.
“I didn’t model him on anybody, really,” Freeman adds. “I just thought he was someone who (given that it’s me or I’m playing him the age I am, roughly the age he is, when he would have been born, the sort of social class that he probably would have been) ends up being quite high up at Scotland Yard.
“He would have been a meticulous man who was into detail. In my version, I’m imagining he was probably in the army. He probably had a military background, as a lot of people have done before, going into the police, especially at that time.”
But the scope of crime drama seen in Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials isn’t actually limited to what we’re watching on screen. Not only is there an overt Broadchurch connection, but Freeman was one of the most famous Watsons on British TV thanks to the Benedict Cumberbatch version of Sherlock.
“I think it’s nice when people like stuff you’ve done before and it’s in the same genre,” Chibnall tells me. “So if people who’ve watched Broadchurch come to Seven Dials and vice versa, and I would imagine the same with Sherlock and The Responder and all of the cast’s things, that’s a delight. It’s a very popular genre, and you want to feel like you’re working in stuff that people love.”
“To be fair to Agatha, she has her own massive fan base that doesn’t have to rely on anything else we’ve ever done, because it’s, she’s pretty massive, you know, and the love seems to be pretty eternal,” Freeman rightly points out. I mean, that’s really the reason we’re all tuning in, right?
But I’m just hitting my Christie stride here, and one show isn’t enough. So what should be next on my to watch list? “The other one for me that’s amazing is the Joan Hickson Miss Marple, the BBC ones from the 80s. Those would have to be a triple, quadruple bill, right?” Chibnall suggests.
UK fans can find these episodes on Prime Video, while US and Australian fans will need to buy/rent them through Apple TV. As for Netflix and Chibnall… Marple reboot for 2027, please.
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jasmine.valentine@futurenet.com (Jasmine Valentine)
