Chris Chibnall teases a "whole different attitude" as Seven Dials moves away from Poirot and Marple ...Middle East

Chris Chibnall has jumped in at the deep end with his first-ever screen adaptation, taking on the 'Queen of Crime', Agatha Christie, for Netflix's Seven Dials.

The three-parter stars Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex) as Lady Eileen 'Bundle' Brent, an amateur sleuth who sets about investigating the death of a young man after a practical joke at her opulent country home appears to go drastically wrong.

But on revisiting the 1929 novel The Seven Dials Mystery – one of Christie's lesser-known works – as an adult, Chibnall observed how it stands apart from her more prolific narratives featuring the likes of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

"Oh, this is not what I remember from Agatha Christie," he recalled when rereading the book.

"The moment you move away from Poirot and Marple, with Bundle – who appears in just one other Christie novel, The Secret of Chimneys – this character that Mia plays at the centre brings a whole different attitude. She's 19 or 20, she's not a professional detective. She's thrown into this story, which happens in her house.

"And the other thing I took from it is that it's really funny. It's full of great characters – it's got a bit of P G Wodehouse, a bit of Bright Young Things. There's a really great young ensemble," he said, which includes Corey Mylchreest (Queen Charlotte, Hostage), Nabhaan Rizwan (Juice, Film Club) and Ed Bluemel (Sex Education, My Lady Jane).

Although there is one familiar character who pops up. Superintendent Battle, played by Martin Freeman, who appeared in four other novels from the iconic author, is "really important in the Christie canon," according to Chibnall, "the way we meet him, and how important he is to the story."

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But most strikingly, "it’s a thriller – it's not that static, theatrical murder mystery," he acknowledged. "It's on its feet and moving. There are lots of different locations, chases, all those sorts of things.

"It's basically a prototype for the modern movie thriller. Agatha Christie was writing these in the 1920s, way before Hollywood got hold of them."

Freeman also echoed Chibnall's comments, describing Seven Dials as having "a different flavour" to what people have typically come to expect from Christie adaptations.

"I'm much more a passenger of Christie, but I know the big hitters, your Marples and your Poirots," he told RadioTimes.com. "But I didn't know about Bundle. I didn't know about her and Battle. So that was a new one for me.

"And... it has a different flavour. It has its own little world, still very her, but a different department of her. That was really interesting, seeing that, it was like the youth wing of Agatha Christie, you know."

Alongside McKenna-Bruce and Freeman, the cast also includes Helena Bonham Carter, who has always wanted to play Miss Marple, but here can be seen playing Bundle's mother Lady Caterham, who has been gender-swapped – in the book, the character is Lord Caterham, Bundle's father.

It gives proceedings a "fresh dynamic," Chibnall told Radio Times magazine.

"To put a bit of a new twist on it felt really delightful," Chibnall told RadioTimes.com. "You get an incredible cast and great plot twists.

"And we really wanted to make it cinematic as well. It's just been a delight from start to finish."

Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials will launch on Netflix on 15th January 2026. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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