Writing for Radio

Christie first wrote for the radio in 1930. As a member of The Detection Club, she was asked to contribute to the series Behind the Screen which was to be broadcast on the BBC National Programme as BBC Radio was then called. She wrote an episode called Something is Missing which was broadcast on 21st June, 1930. Christie read the story live on air and, famed for her shyness, she later admitted to suffering from stage fright. However, she agreed to take part in a second series called The Scoop which was broadcast in 1931. This time Christie contributed to two stories – one was an unnamed episode, the other was called The Strange Behaviour of Mr. Potts. Christie never again read any of her work on radio but her stories were so popular that she was asked to write more for the medium.

Behind the Screen and The Scoop were published in book form in the UK in 1983.

Perhaps her most famous radio piece was written in 1947 when she was asked by the BBC to write an half hour play to celebrate Queen Mary’s 80th birthday – Three Blind Mice would later become The Mousetrap!

As well as Three Blind Mice (1947), Christie wrote three other radio plays between 1937 and 1954.

The Yellow Iris was first broadcast on the BBC National Programme (as it was then called) on Tuesday, November 2, 1937 at 8.00pm. The script was based on the short story, Yellow Iris, which had been published in issue 559 of the Strand Magazine in July of the same year. The main part of the story takes place in a London restaurant and the play was unusual in that the producer, Douglas Moodie, interspersed the action with the performances of the cabaret artistes who were supposedly on the bill at the restaurant. The short story was later expanded by Christie into the 1945 full-length novel Sparkling Cyanide.

Butter in a Lordly Dish (this time an half-hour radio play) was first performed on the BBC Radio Light Programme on Tuesday January 13, 1948 at 9.30pm in a strand entitled Mystery Playhouse presents The Detection Club. No recording exists and the play has never been commercially published. It remains one of Christie's least-known works. The title comes from the Bible: Judges, 5:25 - "He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish". "He" refers to Sisera and "she" is Jael. In the Bible, Jael kills Sisera by hammering a nail through his head. The same fate awaits Sir Luke Enderby in Christie's play.

The play was one of a series of six written by members of the Detection Club to raise funds for the organisation.

The last radio play Personal Call broadcast on the BBC Radio Light Programme on Monday, May 31, 1954 at 8.30pm. The play reuses the character of Inspector Narracott from the 1931 novel The Sittaford Mystery.

Although Christie’s most famous detectives were Poirot and Miss Marple, the BBC first chose to dramatise Partners in Crime in 1953. The thirteen adventures of Tommy and Tuppence starred Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sims, who also performed together in the first stage production of The Mousetrap.

More recently the BBC have dramatised and broadcast both the Miss Marple novels with June Whitfield in the starring role and many of the Hercule Poirot novels with John Moffat as the Belgian detective. Both these series and several celebrated "non series" novels such as And then there were none are available from AudioGo.

Explore

• Stories: The Mousetrap and Three Blind Mice