The Lost Plays ─ Three Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramas From the Queen of Crime: Butter in a Lordly Dish / Murder in the Mews / Personal Call

A triple bill of archive BBC radio dramas, believed lost for over half a century and only recently rediscovered. Butter in a Lordly Dish, written specially for radio in 1948, features Richard Williams as Sir Luke Enderby KC, whose infidelities lead him into trouble when he goes to meet his latest flame. Williams also stars as Hercule Poirot in Murder in the Mews, a 1955 adaptation of a short story. A young woman is found dead in her flat, the day after Guy Fawkes night. Did she die by her own hand, or someone else's? In Personal Call, also written specially for radio by Agatha Christie, a disturbing telephone call from a woman named Fay has consequences for both Richard Brent and his wife Pam. This 1960 production stars Ivan Brandt and Barbara Lott.

Agatha Christie, the acknowledged ?Queen of Detective Fiction’ (The Observer) was born in Torquay in 1890. During the First World War she worked as a hospital dispenser, and it was here that she gleaned the working knowledge of various poisons that was to prove so useful in her detective stories.

Her first novel was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which introduced Hercule Poirot to the world. This was published in 1920 (although in fact she had written it during the war) and was followed over the next six years by four more detective novels and a short story collection. However, it was not until the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that Agatha Christie’s reputation was firmly established. This novel, with its complex plot and genuinely shocking conclusion, attracted considerable public attention and has since been acknowledged by many experts as a masterpiece. In 1930 the sharp-witted spinster sleuth Miss Marple made her first appearance in Murder at the Vicarage. In all, Agatha Christie published 80 crime novels and short story collections.

The brilliance of Christie’s plots, and her enduring appeal, have led to a number of dramatisations of her work on radio, television and film. In 1930 she was one of a number of crime writers asked to contribute a chapter to a mystery, Behind the Screen, that was broadcast on BBC radio on 21st June that year. More recently, June Whitfield portrayed Miss Marple on BBC Radio 4, whilst John Moffat starred as Hercule Poirot. On screen, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet, Margaret Rutherford, Joan Hickson, Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie have all memorably played Agatha Christie’s famous sleuths.

As her play The Mousetrap (the longest-running play in the history of the theatre) testifies, Agatha Christie’s detective stories are likely to appeal for a long time to come.

Agatha Christie was awarded a CBE in 1956 and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1971. She died in 1976.