Dame Agatha Christie “had always been allergic” to cinema adaptations of her books, her husband Max Mallowan was quoted as saying. “She didn’t like her characters to be portrayed on book covers either,” says James Prichard, her great-grandson.
Agatha, who wrote 66 detective novels between 1920 and 1976, translated into around 45 languages, is the most widely read novelist in history, with sales of more than two billion copies worldwide. There have been 23 film adaptations of her books in the UK alone, not to mention the multiple TV series. And now we have Murder on the Orient Express.
Directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh (who also plays Belgian detective Hercule Poirot), it features a parade of greats from stage and screen, including Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Dame Judi…
