Murder on the Orient Express: A BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation

An international cast of suspects, all passengers on the crowded train, are speeding through the snowy European landscape when a bizarre and terrible murder brings them to an abrupt halt. One of their glittering number lies dead in his cabin, stabbed a mysterious twelve times. There is no lack of clues for Poirot - but which clue is real and which is a clever plant? Poirot realises that this time he is dealing with a murderer of enormous cunning and that in a case frought with fear and inconstencies only one thing is certain - the murderer is still aboard the train waiting to strike again... John Moffatt stars as Hercule Poirot, with a stellar cast including Joss Ackland, Sylvia Syms, Francesca Annis, and Siân Phillips.

Soon to be released as a film, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Penelope Cruz, Olivia Coleman, Dame Judi Dench, Daisy Ridley, Derek Jacobi, and Michele Pfeiffer, The Murder on the Orient Express is a perennial classic.

Agatha Christie was born in 1890. During the World War I she worked as a hospital dispenser, where she gleaned the working knowledge of various poisons. Her first novel was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920, followed over the next six years by four more detective novels and a short story collection. However, it was not until the publication of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that Agatha Christie’s reputation was firmly established. In 1930 the sharp-witted spinster sleuth Miss Marple made her first appearance in Murder at the Vicarage. In all, Agatha Christie published 80 crime novels and short story collections. As her play The Mousetrap (the longest-running play in the history of the theater) testifies, Agatha Christie’s detective stories are likely to appeal for a long time to come. Agatha Christie was awarded a CBE in 1956 and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1971. She died in 1976.