Why Christie didn’t write about sex and swearing

AGATHA Christie would have included sex, drugs and swearing in her novels – if only it had been acceptable, according to a TV writer.

Sarah Phelps – who has 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.

‘She was a dispensing chemist. There was a woman who knew the difference to life and death that a grain of morphine could make,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me this woman is a stranger to controversy, that she is a stranger to blood and guts.’

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.’

Miss 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.’

The ABC Murders starts on BBC1 on Boxing Day.