Agatha will be turning in her grave! Fans’ dismay at expletive-ridden BBC adaptation

AGATHA Christie fans have complained the author would be ‘turning in her grave’ at the BBC’s foul-mouthed adaptation of one of her favourite novels.

Ordeal By Innocence viewers were shocked to hear characters continuously using explicit language and making crude sexual remarks unheard of in polite society when the book was published in 1958.

Christie devotees were already outraged by screenwriter Sarah Phelps’s decision to change the identity of the person who murdered an aristocratic matriarch in the plot.

In Sunday night’s second episode, which was down 1.4million viewers from last week, Tina Argyll, played by Crystal Clarke, was seen shouting ‘f*** off’ at a group of men who harassed her on the street. Later Jack Argyll, played by Anthony Boyle, boasted he’d been ‘f***ing’ family friend Lydia Gould and simulated a sexual act on his finger.

Despite the era’s genteel image, references to sex were made throughout as characters talked of ‘riding’ and ‘shafting’ one another not long after the watershed.

One viewer wrote on social media: ‘Agatha Christie would be turning in her grave at all this swearing and misery.’ Another added: ‘Why must everything on TV these days be spoilt by littering it with foul language, it’s Agatha Christie for God’s sake. ’

Others said they were ‘switching off’ over the ‘filth’, adding: ‘I’m sure there wasn’t this much sex in the book.’

Miss Phelps has been branded ‘arrogant’ for changing the identity of the murderer. But she has said in interviews she didn’t ‘give a b******s’ about offending people by editing the storyline. The three-part series, which also stars Bill Nighy and Anna Chancellor, concludes on Sunday. The BBC did not respond to requests for comment.