Agatha Christie novels would have had sex and drugs if it was acceptable
According to a TV writer, famed author Agatha Christie’s novels would have included sex, drugs and swearing, if only it had been acceptable during her time.
Sarah Phelps, who has now adapted Miss Christie’s The ABC Murders for the BBC – said the author’s background in pharmacy meant she wouldn’t have flinched from the realities of life.
A report in MailOnline cited her as saying, “She was a dispensing chemist. There was a woman who knew the difference to life and death that a grain of morphine could make.”
Her upcoming adaptation of the 1936 novel sees John Malkovich star as Hercule Poirot as he tries to catch a killer on a spree linked to towns across the railway network.
She told this week’s launch of her dramatisation that Miss Christie ‘may never write a lot about sex and swearing and drug taking, but I am sure she would have if she could.’
Phelps added that she is not afraid of showing intimacy or violence on TV over Christmas, saying: ‘Yeah, like nobody ever had sex before like 1963.’
Miss Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard also said he was ‘sceptical’ about TV bosses axing Poirot’s famous moustache. He said: ‘It took me a little while to get used to.’
