Christie

via 20th Century Studios The increasing practice of re-editing classic literature to make it more palatable to modern readers has been a contentious situation to put it lightly, with several titans of the printed page having seen their works reappraised with modern day sensibilities in mind. Agatha Christie has become the latest, and it doesn’t take Hercule Poirot to uncover why both sides of the debate feel so strongly about it. As one of the best-selling authors of all-time that’s estimated to have shipped…

In the last couple of years, you didn’t need to be sporting a monocle to notice that there were murder mysteries everywhere. On television, you could guess whodunnit on The Afterparty or Only Murders in the Building. On the big screen, Kenneth Branagh worked his way through two starry Poirots with Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. The Agatha Christie love continued with See How They Run, a retro crime caper pegged to her play The Mousetrap. And then there was Knives Out.Released in 2019 and directed by…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeChannel 4 has shared a first look at the two-part film exploring the Wagatha Christie legal battle.Vardy V Rooney: A Courtroom Drama will explore the case that made headlines in 2019.This summer, Vardy, 40, lost a libel battle against Rooney, 36, over a social media post that the High Court judge found to be “substantially true”.Rooney was being sued for accusing her former friend on…

Shen was on display in Singapore in October ahead of the November auction. Image: Roslan Rahman/AFP (Getty Images)Auction house Christie’s has pulled a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen from an upcoming roster after a paleontologist expressed concerns that some parts of the dinosaur might belong to another T. rex specimen.The estimated 3,000 pound (1,400 kilogram) T. rex specimen, nicknamed “Shen,” was set to be auctioned off by Christie’s in Hong Kong on November 30, until paleontologist Pete Larson cast doubt that all of the…

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s collection went for over $1.5 billion, making it one of the most successful art auctions in history.Photo: Christie’sOriginal Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s massive art collection has already sold for over $1.506 billion as of Wednesday morning, according to the auction house Christie’s. More than half of those lots have sold for far above their estimated price range, and five of the paintings were priced above $100 million. In years past, according to Christie’s, only two other…

A brilliant Greek sun beats down on Daniel Craig and his co-stars Kate Hudson, Edward Norton and Janelle Monáe in the follow-up to Knives Out, the surprise whodunnit hit of 2019.When Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery arrives later this month in UK cinemas, audiences will be introduced to a handful of prime suspects in the time-honoured manner, while Craig’s gentlemanly sleuth Benoit Blanc sets out to solve an impending crime.But the glossy Knives Out films are not the only recent releases to stretch the framework of the…

The second season of Severance has just started filming, and to mark the milestone, we have some new details on the cast. As Deadline reports, there are quite a few fresh faces joining the offices of Lumon Industries for season 2. That includes: Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, Alia Shawkat, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and John Noble. That’s a lot of handshakes (available upon request).There might be some hints in that image, or the production staff might just really praise…

My earliest reading memoryMy childhood hero was Spot the dog. After a couple of read-throughs, I’d do my best to recreate his mischief. My first taste of real life being harsher than fiction – Spot got a grin and a mild telling-off, I got sent to my room for four hours.My favourite book growing upFar too few people have heard of The Phantom Tollbooth, a sharp and smart fantasy by Norton Juster. The best books to read as a child are the ones that take you away from the uncomfortable business of growing up, so you hardly…

Agatha Christie was arguably the first modern literary celebrity, and it follows that her long writing life, from her first published novel in 1920 to her death in 1976 at the age of 85, has been thoroughly picked over, not only by journalists during her lifetime but by the author herself in her autobiography. Any biographer wishing to bring a new perspective to Christie’s story is therefore working within obvious limitations, not least that many of the most intimate and revealing letters written or received by her were…

The witty, pre-pandemic Daniel Craig vehicle Knives Out whetted an appetite once more for spoofing Agatha Christie. Queue-jumping that film’s sequel (due out later this year) is this rival meta-spoof, the feature debut of Tom George, whose imaginative BBC Three Cotswolds slacker comedy This Country offers few hints that a postwar, London-set whodunnit might be George’s next achievement. See How They Run ponders that cornerstone – or millstone – of the Christie legacy, her tourist bucket-listed play The Mousetrap, focusing…