'Agatha Christie's Seven Dials' brings feisty flavour to murder mystery

LONDON—Makers of the new Netflix series “Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials” hope to introduce a new generation to the queen of crime, the iconic author of more than 60 mystery novels.

The three-part show debuting Thursday is based on Christie’s 1929 novel “The Seven Dials Mystery” and stars “How to Have Sex” actor Mia McKenna-Bruce as a bright young aristocrat, Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent.

When a guest dies in suspicious circumstances during a glitzy gathering at her country mansion, Bundle takes it upon herself to find out what happened. Her wits, determination and seven clocks left on the scene lead Bundle to a shadowy scheme.

“The fact that Bundle’s kind of leading the charge, this young, fearless, feisty girl, something that we haven’t seen very much of, I think that really gives it a new, exciting feel,” said McKenna-Bruce at a London premiere on Tuesday, the day after the 50th anniversary of Christie’s death.

The whodunit also stars Helena Bonham Carter as Bundle’s mother and Martin Freeman in the role of Scotland Yard’s Superintendent Battle.

The show has “a lot of energy and it’s done with a lot of gusto,” said Bonham-Carter.

The engine for that energy is Bundle, whom director Chris Sweeney described as a “cannonball of a person”.

Unlike a typical country house mystery where “there’s a lot of sitting and talking, Bundle is always moving,” he said.

With writer Chris Chibnall, Sweeney also set out to energize the story with a vivid depiction of the era.

“It takes place September 1925, in the shadow of war but also with lots of bright young things who are partying through the ’20s,” said Chibnall.

Famous for characters like Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, Christie became the world’s best-selling fiction writer with more than 2 billion copies sold.

“If this show can be the gateway drug to introduce a whole new generation into Agatha Christie’s books and adaptations, that would be a joy. It would be repaying all the joy that she’s brought to my life and billions of readers,” said Chibnall.