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SEPTEMBER 2011 UPDATE
Agatha Christie Week 2011
I have just returned from the annual Agatha Christie Week celebrations in Torquay. Blessed, as is usually the case, with glorious weather the 121st birthday of the Queen of Crime was an even bigger success than previous years. The first official event of the week was a Garden Fete, as in Dead Man’s Folly, held not under the magnolia tree outside the drawing-room of Greenway House, but in the Princess Gardens on Torquay seafront. Stalls of every type - book, cake, sweets, jewellery, plant, bottle and vintage clothing as well as the inevitable White Elephant – surrounded the elegant Pavilion; and ‘official’ stalls for Greenway House, Torquay Museum, the Library service, the Tourist Board and the Rotary Club proliferated. Many of the stall holders took the opportunity to dress in the style of a Christie mystery and a certain Belgian gentleman was seen posing for many photographs!
Later that evening I hosted a Literary Dinner, attended by 25 fans, from as far apart as Australia, Canada, the U.S. and, nearer to home, Ireland, Germany and Spain. We enjoyed a 5-course dinner in the elegant surroundings of Agatha Christie’s dining-room followed by a twilight tour of the house itself with the house steward Ellin supplying the historical detail and myself identifying the book references to be found in each room of the Georgian mansion. After the tour we returned to the drawing-room where I played Agatha Christie’s own waltz composition ‘One Hour with Thee’ on her own Steinway piano.
Throughout the week on a daily basis it was possible for fans to solve a Murder Mystery, examine a Christie Flower Festival, attend a Tea Dance, enjoy a twilight tour of Greenway, take Afternoon Tea in hotels formerly patronised by the Queen of Crime, or take a vintage bus tour or a river cruise to Greenway House; and throughout the week the Agatha Christie Theatre Company presented this year’s play, Verdict, in the Princess Theatre.
My happy task on the Monday morning was to unveil the typescript, the Notebook and the first edition of Five Little Pigs in Paignton’s new Library and Information Centre. All the items were generously loaned by Mathew Prichard and to oversee the occasion Hercule Poirot himself was on hand. Later that day I spoke at the showing of a vintage screen and radio version of a Christie classic. This year I introduced The Red Signal, both the Thames Television version from The Agatha Christie Hour and an earlier adaptation from American TV in 1952. Also on the programme was James Mason at his villainous best in the 1949 radio version of Where There’s a Will aka Wireless.
The AC Week launch of Murder in the Making took place the following evening in the innovative surroundings of the church next door to the Museum (the normal lecture theatre of the Museum is presently home to Ancient Egypt!). I gave an illustrated account of the writing of the book and was delighted with the number and nature of the questions from the audience afterwards. We all retired to the Museum for refreshments and I happily signed copies of Murder in the Making, as well as the Museum’s last remaining hardback copies of Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks.
As most Christie fans know, the art-deco hotel and spectacular Burgh Island itself, off the coast of Devon at Bigbury-on-Sea, is the setting for Evil under the Sun. It was also the setting, earlier on Tuesday, of a stepping-back in time to an ‘in-costume’ lunch, followed by a tour of the island to see the geography of the famous case, led by Gary McNut, one of the hotel’s waiters and himself an institution!
The first ever Agatha Christie Week Quiz was held in the Grand Hotel on the 14th September where newly-married Agatha and Archie spent their honeymoon in 1914. ‘Small but perfectly formed’ was the verdict on the evening; attendance was small but enthusiastic and a team, mysteriously called ‘Tommy and Tuppence’, won the magnificent prizes of a box-set each of six leather-bound copies of Christie classics chosen, and signed, by Rosalind Hicks to celebrate her mother’s Centenary.
One of the high points of the week was the panel, chaired by Mathew Prichard on his grandmother’s birthday, on ‘Adapting Agatha Christie’. In the stunning Spanish Barn attached to Torre Abbey a rapt audience listed to Trevor Bowen, who adapted eight of the Joan Hickson Marples for BBC TV, speak about the creation of this classic series and illustrate his points with excerpts from Murder at the Vicarage and 4.50 from Paddington. Nick Dear who has adapted five episodes of Poirot for the David Suchet series spoke of taking permissible liberties with the source material and he illustrated his case with scenes from Three Act Tragedy. My job was to be ‘devil’s advocate’ and to present unacceptable screen adaptations; I freely admit I accepted this brief with alacrity but was forced to limit myself to a mere two excerpts amounting to ten minutes. My chosen offenders were the 2003 version of Sparking Cyanide and the 2007 Marple travesty Nemesis, both of which were almost unrecognisable when ‘adapters’ had finished with them. After a lively Q and A session we all returned to the Grand Hotel for the Birthday Fireworks Display.
The final day of the Festival included a Cream Tea at Cockington Court, where a young Agatha Christie was a frequent visitor; a Sea Swim (Agatha Christie was an enthusiastic swimmer) in aid of The Devon Air Ambulance and the final event was a screening of Thirteen at Dinner. Sadly, word was received that Jonathan Cecil (Hastings in that adaptation) had been hospitalised the previous day; at the request of the organisers I agreed to act as his ‘understudy’ and talk about the film prior to the screening, although I was unable to offer any behind-the-scenes glimpses into its filming.
MAY 2011 UPDATE
I have just returned from a short but hectic visit to the US, where I attended both the Edgar Awards in New York and the Agatha Awards in Bethesda, Washington. In both cases Secret Notebooks was nominated for an award in the non-fiction category.
The New York event was first, on Thursday 28th April in the Grand Hyatt Hotel. A reception for nominees preceded the dinner, giving an opportunity to meet and greet fellow-nominees. I chatted with British writers L. V. Tyler and Robert Goddard, both with novels in the Best Paperback Original Category. Official photographs of the nominees in each category were followed by individual photos by friends and family members. The enormous ballroom, where the dinner was served, was filled with tables-for-10, sponsored for the most part by publishers. I took my place at the HarperCollins table and throughout the dinner the two enormous video screens flashed photographs and book-jackets from the Edgars of yesteryear. And when the current nominations were called out the screen filled with the five (in most cases) nominated books. The winner in each category is decided by a committee and, as with the Oscars, suspense is maintained until the last possible moment with the ‘opening of the envelope’. Roughly half-way through the ceremony the Edgar for non-fiction was announced and Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks lost out to the very worthy winner, Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang. Sara Paretsky was honoured with the MWA Grandmaster Award and during her speech emphasised the importance of books and reading in a country where one in four of the population is functionally illiterate. The event ended relatively early – shortly after 10 pm – and more photographs, hand-shaking and congratulations followed. Outside the ballroom publishers had piled tables high with the nominated titles and (some!) attendees staggered from the Hyatt at the end of the evening with armfuls of books.
The Agatha Awards are presented at the Malice Domestic convention, held each year in Bethesda just outside Washington and timed to coincide with the Edgars. Malice Domestic honours the traditional mystery, as typified by the work of Agatha Christie and most of her contemporaries; hard-boiled and noir crime fiction is not the reading of choice of Malice fans. As illustration, the Malice Lifetime Achievement Award has been presented to writers such as M. G. Eberhart, H. R. F. Keating, Robert Barnard, Peter Lovesey and Anne Perry. Also unlike the Edgars, the award in each category – Novel, First Novel, Short Story, Juvenile and Non-fiction – is decided by ballot of the attendees at the convention. Panel discussions, interviews, signing-sessions and book-selling and buying all form party of a busy weekend. A 7.30 breakfast was, to my surprise, packed with interested readers and each table was hosted by an author of a ‘first’ book. Each writer was interviewed briefly and given a chance to talk about their book. Later that day I took part in a panel discussion with three of the other nominees in the Non-fiction Category - Deborah Blum, Katherine Hall Page, Steven Doyle. The Agatha Awards were presented in the course of the Malice Domestic Banquet and I was amazed and delighted when Secret Notebooks was announced as the winner. So great was my surprise that I hardly remember what I said but hope I thanked everyone involved in voting for me (and, by extension, Agatha Christie). Celebrations followed in the company of Doug Greene (author of the definitive study of John Dickson Carr: The Man who Explained Miracles), Steve Steinbock (the newly-appointed reviewer for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine), and Caroline Todd (author, with her son, of the wonderful Inspector Rutledge and, more recently, the Bess Crawford mysteries). Indeed, Caroline’s advice and company throughout the weekend was invaluable. The final event of the weekend was Afternoon Tea on Sunday afternoon during which I was interviewed by Caroline about my experiences in writing Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks. Thanks to the generosity of HarperCollins all attendees were presented with a copy of my book and an Agatha Christie and a Charles Todd novel – and Caroline and myself were kept busy for over an hour happily signing.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
Thursday September 1st – Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making published with a launch party in Dublin.
Wednesday September 7th – Launch event in Goldsboro Books in London
Tuesday September 13th – Launch event and illustrated talk in Torquay Museum during Agatha Christie Week.
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MARCH 2011 UPDATE
Since my post about the Edgar nomination Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks has been honoured with another nomination - the Agatha, awarded annually at the Malice Domestic convention. This means that the morning after the Edgar Awards dinner I travel to Bethesda, Maryland for a weekend of ‘civilised’ crime!
While there, I have been invited to host a dinner and to participate in a Q and A with Charles Todd, the American mother-and-son writing team. They produce the wonderful Inspector Rutledge series, as well as the more recent Bess Crawford books; both series are sent in turn-of-the-last-century UK.
In early March I was one of the speakers at the Ennis Bookclub Festival in County Clare in south-west Ireland. As its name suggests, this is a book festival as which most of the attendees are members of bookclubs from all over Ireland. A lively Q and A followed my talk on the Saturday morning and while signing books afterwards for Christie fans I was invited to present the talk again at book festivals in other parts of Ireland in 2012.
Next month I am taking a group of Finnish fans around Torquay and all the places there associated with Agatha Christie; the highlight of the week will be the tour of Greenway House and Gardens. Also on the itinerary is Dartmoor, the setting of The Sittaford Mystery and, more famously, The Hound of the Baskervilles. If time permits on the return journey, we hope to visit other UK locations – Wallingford, Nether Wallop – with Christie connections.
In May I am attending CrimeFest in Bristol. This is a hugely enjoyable weekend convention at the Marriott Hotel for crime readers and writers with panels and workshops and signing sessions and a Gala Dinner on the Saturday night. In a moment of weakness I agreed to be one of the ‘victims’ in a Mastermind Quiz on the final day. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to select Agatha Christie as my Specialised Subject (I wonder why?!) and will have to take my chances with ‘Golden Age Detective Fiction’. On surer ground, I am appearing, earlier in the weekend, on a panel on writing non-fiction about crime fiction. After the convention I am taking a group of readers and writers around Greenway House, which we will have to ourselves for the day. Bliss!