Book Club

Christie's Plays

Agatha Christie wrote over a dozen plays, the most famous of which is The Mousetrap - the longest running play in the world. Here you can discuss each play in detail.

Warning: These discussions may contain spoilers!

Where can I find these plays?

Frndorfoe 11 Aug 09 at 9:51 a.m. GMT

I have read the novelized version of Black Coffee but where can I find the original play written by Agatha Christie? Also, have two of her radio plays Butter in a Lordly Dish and Personal Call ever been published? Are they still in print? I have read their plot lines and have been greatly intrigued by them. I would like to read these plays as I am a great admirer of plays in general and have read most of Agatha Christie's other plays.

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SamuelFrench 27 Aug 10 at 2:27 p.m. GMT

Samuel French Ltd in London publish 16 of her plays which are available from our website http://www.samuelfrench-london.co.uk. We shall also be running an Agatha Christie Festival competition from 1st-19th September. Use this link to see the full list of titles.

Tommy_A_Jones 19 Aug 10 at 4:34 p.m. GMT

With The Agatha Christie Collection I have came the plays, Cards On The Table Is not one of Them but I saw a Copy of it when Googleing.

NightRayDuck 19 Aug 10 at 3:17 a.m. GMT

There is a US edition called "The Mousetrap and Other Plays". The contents are the plays (not novelised, just the script like scene, chairs, this character enters, that character says):

Ten Little Indians

Appointment With Death

The Hollow

The Mousetrap

Witness for the Prosecution

Towards Zero

Verdict

Go Back for Murder

I think it's possible to order from a US website, and pay an import tax when one receives the item outside of the US? Just a thought, if an item is not yet available where you live..

johnwaynefreak 30 Aug 09 at 4:52 p.m. GMT

I don't mean to be contradictory here but at the end of July, I purchased most of Christie's plays (including "Black Coffee" and the other two novelised by Charles Osbourne) from Samuel French (as suggested by GKCfan) -

the catalogue and pricing is available at this page: http://www.samuelfrench-london.co.uk/sf/Pages/sup/pl.html

I enjoy the omnibus editions, "The Mousetrap and Selected Plays" and "Witness For The Prosecution and Selected Plays" very much but find the others were much easier to "get into" through French's large format scripts.

Frndorfoe 12 Aug 09 at 12:39 p.m. GMT

Jemma

We're currently looking into the possibility of publishing them.  As soon as plans are finalised we'll add something to the home page.

Thank you for the info. Will be looking forward to that.

Jemma 12 Aug 09 at 11:07 a.m. GMT

We're currently looking into the possibility of publishing them.  As soon as plans are finalised we'll add something to the home page.

Frndorfoe 12 Aug 09 at 8:43 a.m. GMT

Thank you GKCfan. But as Jemma said these plays are not in print and are not available for purchase. That's so sad. :-( Why aren't they in print anyway? I wish they were.

Jemma 12 Aug 09 at 8:30 a.m. GMT

I'm so sorry but at the moment these plays are not in print and are not available for purchase. It won't be possible for you to purchase these through any of our commercial partners.

GKCfan 12 Aug 09 at 5:50 a.m. GMT

Check the Samuel French website.  They sell many of Christie's plays (though not all of them) for pretty reasonable prices.  Black Coffee may be among them.  From what I've read, Personal Call has never been published.  I know of no printed edition of Butter in a Lordly Dish in English, but if you search the Internet you may discover an Italian-language copy of the play available from several websites.  Of course, if you can't read Italian (I can't), it may not do you much good.  I suggest you write a letter to the New Plays Festival in Kentucky, that recently produced four of Christie's radio plays and ask if it's possible to purchase a copy of the scripts they used.  Please let me know- I'd be interested in buying them (the other two are Yellow Iris and Three Blind Mice) myself.