Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials

The new Netflix series Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials centers on lesser known mystery solving protagonist Lady Eileen Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce). It’s got all the familiar cozy mystery trappings like a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots of secrets. Based on an early Christie novel, the show also features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter. To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. http://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

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  Y'all know Agatha Christie's beloved mystery-solving protagonists. There's Hercule Poirot, there's Miss Marple, there's Lady Eileen Brandt. Wait, what? Who now? Well, Lady Eileen may not be as well-known, but she's the star of a new Netflix series called Seven Dials, which features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham Carter. And while it's got all the familiar cozy Christie mystery trappings-- a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff-upper-lips, and lots and lots of secrets-- there's something else going on here, too, something that Netflix hopes will launch, wait for it, an Agatha Christie universe. I'm Glen Weldon, and today we're talking about Agatha Christie's Seven Dials on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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• 2:19Speaker 01

  Joining me today is Barry Hardiman. She's a senior editor for NPR's Investigations team. Welcome back, Barry. It's been too long.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  It's been too long. How are you? Happy New Year.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Happy New Year to you. And rounding out the panel is culture writer Margaret H. Willison. It's also been too long for you. Hey, Margaret.

• 2:33Speaker 04

  Hi, Glenn. I'm so glad to be back with this crack team of mystery analysts.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  I just want to tell you, ladies, I admire your pluck. Just want to get that on there.

• 2:42Speaker 03

  You really can do nothing else under the circumstances.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely. In Agatha Christie's Seven Dials, it's 1925 in Britain at a grand old house in the country. Lady Caterham and her daughter, Lady Eileen, that's Bundle, to her universally insufferable aristocratic chums, throw a party where gauche social climbers mix with members of the British intelligence community. Lady Caterham is played by Helena Bonham Carter, and Bundle is played by Mia McKenna Bruce.

• 3:08Speaker 05

  What do we think this top secret project is that they're talking about?

• 3:11Speaker 06

  Well, if I learned one thing from your dear departed father, it was this: it doesn't do to ask too many questions.

• 3:18Speaker 05

  And that marks the difference between you and I.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  The next morning, one handsome young man who works at the British Foreign Office winds up dead. The death is ruled a suicide, but Bundle is sure that that's wrong because he was about to propose to her. Her resolve to solve the young man's murder and what it might have to do with seven clocks that were placed on the mantel of the bedroom he died in gets Bundle tangled up in a conspiracy involving a secret formula. It also brings her into conflict with Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, who tries to waver off the case, although he does respect her pluck. That's where I got that from. He's played by Martin Freeman. Seven Dials is based on an early Christie novel that was not well-received at the time because its looser, action-oriented plot departed so radically from what folks

• 4:02Speaker 01

  expected of her. It's created by Chris Chibnall, who created Broadchurch and did a stint as a showrunner on Doctor Who. All three episodes are on Netflix now. Margaret, who else could we start with? Who else, I ask you? What'd you think of Agatha Christie's Seven Dials?

• 4:17Speaker 04

  As someone who has been in a relationship with Agatha Christie since age 10, when my mom brought home my first used Agatha Christie paper book from a thrift store.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  That's the way to do it.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  I really enjoyed this. You know, she's so adapted, and people always face the challenge of sort of like, well, how much of this time period detail are we going to preserve? Because it's part of the charm. And how much are we going to update? Because that time period... The values therein don't always align with the values of our time.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Awkward.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  There are people who thread this needle successfully. There are people who thread this needle very poorly. I would say this is a very successful needle threading, like

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  thoughtful adaptation, but what's most important is I feel like it really preserves the essence of Christie, where we have a lot of hijinks, we have a lot of banter, we have some emotional stakes, but not massive ones, just enough to keep the plot humming. And the plot hums along and comes along very beautifully. I feel like it plays well by the mystery rules, where you're given enough information to come up with all the conclusions yourself, but the final reveal is still a surprise, or it was to me. For those reasons, I very much enjoyed this, heartily recommend it to others and hope it does spawn a Christie cinematic universe on Netflix.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Okay. Are you done for the CCU, Barry?

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Well, in that we are aligned. There are few better universes that we could spread about the world at this moment. But let me put it this way, everything about this is made for me, an old man or house, a plucky young heroine, Helena Bonham Carter, tons of gorgeous old timepieces. I mean, that is really where it was like very specific to like Barry Hardiman. And I mean, literally, there is a shot of a World War I era trench watch, like in the first five minutes, and it's worth it for that alone. But I will say that it meant that I enjoyed it. It doesn't necessarily mean that I thought it was the most successful cozy mystery that I have watched. And I think a lot of that is partly

• 6:23Speaker 03

  down to the fact that it's, it's not a perfect Christie mystery. And in fact, people complained about it when it came out. It's more of a thriller. But for me, the mystery itself is a little, doesn't quite hang together. The writers have made some changes to the book. And which I say, I know with great portents, they've made some changes. But I think neither is actually a perfect mystery. I mean, it's, you know, you can go back and trace it and find that you got a pretty good deal from the author or the writer in this case of the series. But there was never a moment where I felt that anyone would have really gasped. I don't want my gasps to be from the sort of scary thrilleriness of it. I want my gasps to be from the plot math. You know what I mean? And so that I didn't get.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  I will say I loved Bundle, loved Lady Eileen. You know, it is a who's who of everybody. Helena Bonham Carter is doing what she does in really very fine fashion. She's dealt some crooked story math herself and I think handles it very, very well. You know, for me, this is a six to seven dials as opposed to 10 dials.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. All right. That's interesting. We have arranged ourselves, as sometimes we do, a longer spectrum. I'm going to give this three or four dials because look, this worked for me until the very moment it stopped, which is about a third of the way, I would say, through the third episode, when I just thought it went all the way off the damn rails. And so I feel like I'm one of those early critics who are like, well, this isn't what I was expecting of her because this isn't what I was expecting of. Like Barry, I'm with you. When it was serving me, Manor House, my gal, HBC, being snippy, rude to the servants, hating the commoners.

• 7:59Speaker 06

  Will you be joining us for bridge? Oh, I fear not, Lady Koot. Oh, why? It was devised by an American on a boat.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  This is what I want.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  A low back.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  When it's given me a guy with no neck who looks like Colonel Mustard, acting like what I expect Colonel Mustard would look like and act like, yeah, that'd be it. A bunch of upperclass being upperclass twits. I mean, the dialogue there is fine. It's kind of diet Jeeves and Wuster, but I think that's what it's aiming for.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  Perfect, yes.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  When it tries to pivot to the action or suspense or thriller genre, which it keeps trying to do, I just don't think it works. I do think they're trying to make it a gag, how they're pivoting to it because like, there's this one car chase where instead of like tires screeching and engines revving, you hear put, put, put, put, put, put, put, put, and that's just funny.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  That's just funny when there's an adorable car chase. And these guys, you know, these people, these noodle armed Aristos don't know how to fight. And so they play that up. If that's, all that stuff is going to be a gag, then what am I to make of it when a character gets up on their high horse about the stolen formula costing British lives?

• 9:06Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  It's like, you know what's given to me? It's given to me Mrs. Peacock in Clue. Well, like, a lot of our airmen died because their radios didn't work. It's like, give me that. And can we talk about this? I really want to talk about this without actually spoiling anything, but

• 9:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  the secret society stuff is so silly.

• 9:24Speaker 04

  There's one particular secret society meeting that is overheard.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  That is, the definition of this meeting should have been a telegram.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  I took, I took what I said. It's exactly what it said, that meeting could have been an email.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. They are, and it's just, it is so funny because they're also, they have like elaborate costumes.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Right. They have a secret meeting place.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Why did we come together to say this to each other?

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Somebody inlaid the table. Like, that's to me, I'm like, somebody really went to a lot of trouble. I think there's Mother of Pearl in there.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  Absolutely, maybe gold.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yes, right. All of that stuff could work if everything around it was lighter, funnier, crisper, faster, punchier.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Faster, yeah, the pacing is, yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  It keeps getting bogged down with this emotional stuff that, Margaret, you were talking about. Like, Bundle keeps telling people that she has to figure out what happened to her little Timo Matthew Good, right?

• 10:13Speaker 05

  He was a source of incredible comfort for both me and my family.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  And he, I was more than fond of him, honey.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  This is like a record for Netflix, but only three episodes and we got, she got all serious about her, you know, she and Rufus Sewell every 15 minutes.

• 10:30Speaker 04

  Glenn, you've got to update your references.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  One wishes, yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  What you're meant to do is squint at him and say, is that the guy from Frankenstein?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Is that Jacob Elordi?

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Right, yeah, there we go.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  I got news, it ain't Jacob Elordi.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  But I mean, I do think that Corey Milkreast has a great career ahead of him of people being, is that Jacob Elordi?

• 10:48Speaker 03

  People squinting, indeed.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  My question for you both is like, what sets this apart from the masterpiece mysteries of the world or any of a million other places? You could get the mystery stuff that this show serves up without all this franchise building nonsense? Because right now, This is a combination Pizza Hut, Taco Bell. And I don't go to a combination Pizza Hut, Taco Bell when I want pizza.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to see more of this because I want to see more of this always. But I do think you've hit upon a little bit of a problem, which is that because the characters that we are left with and presumably might carry on to another mystery have only been developed in terms of their barest motivation, as we've just pointed out. There isn't enough for me to want to see them now. You know, like, I can't remember what the Thin Man mysteries are about, but I remember their dog's name, you know what I mean?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Who could forget Asta?

• 11:43Speaker 03

  And this is hard. I do remember the house's name, because that's just my thing. But I don't remember, there's not enough to really hook into my brain. And so the lack of character development, it's almost as though in their attempts to update this in a way that is more tolerable for modern viewers, they sort of forgotten that you can't just insert a couple of lectures in place of actual human, like, banter and contact. And so, you know, I applaud their, the history lessons and whatnot. And what I really want is some, a little more banter, a little more whimsy. And actually, what I really want is whimsy, guys. I mean, how is there not a whimsy?

• 12:22Speaker 04

  I mean, we all agree. I think the primary reason that I am excited is Bundle. I feel like she really, really worked for me. And I feel like I agree with the tensions that you guys are citing in terms of, like, the degree to which she's like, quote unquote, traumatized and the way that's worked into the plot. And also the way that trauma is addressed in the story overall. I'm going to reference something that I introduced on Pop Culture Happy Hour in 2014. It's my first ever Weldonian schema, which is what kind of detective are we working with? You have two axes. We go from professional to amateur on one axis, and we go from traumatized to impervious on the other axes.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  And I would say that Lady Eileen is placed perfectly for me. Lightly traumatized, right? You know, she has a feeling, but also she's going to make a joke about the subpar Ivy refusing to hold her as she shimmies down a drainpipe. And primarily, what she is there for is pluckily shimmying down drainpipes, which I would say she does with great aplomb.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  Poor the raisin.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Very poor class of Ivy. I did that, another squinting thing. If you're watching one of these British shows, I was like Mia McKenna Bruce. I was like, what have I seen her? And I didn't, she played a character I wasn't supposed to like, but I loved the way she played it. Who was she? Who was she? She was in Netflix's wildly ill-conceived persuasion adaptation. Oh, yes. And she was truly one of the only great things about it. So I was thrilled to see her here, getting to use her talents to a better end. And I feel like moving forward, we will have the freedom to pursue things a little bit more whimsically.

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  Because again, not to spoil things, but we've sort of, you sort of step out of the realm of like grounded political consequences and into the realm of Kingsman, let's say. Sure. Yes. And I would love to see basically an Agatha Christie inflected Kingsman-type serial adventure.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  Starring Eileen Bundlebrandt. That to me feels like a winning formula.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  But I understand and agree with you if what they try to do instead is this thing where they're like, well, we're addressing the ills of the British Empire, but also isn't this Ivy funny? Yep. And obviously Martin Freeman as Battle, as Superintendent Battle, could be a very humorless part. And he does a great job of sort of lacing it with wry humor without betraying the idea that he's sort of a very serious police superintendent with much business to attend to. What are you doing out here?

• 15:00Speaker 07

  Ensuring that no one is about who shouldn't be. May I ask what you were doing out here?

• 15:05Speaker 04

  Me?

• 15:06Speaker 07

  Yes, you. Do you normally exit buildings via the window?

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Uh, depends on the building.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  He has one piece of acting toward the very end at a moment where he has to show empathy. I felt he was the right man for the job, you know?

• 15:21Speaker 04

  You feel they spent their budget well when it comes to their actors?

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Right?

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Truly, I think what we can hope for is that they thought, okay, we're gonna do the seven dials because we have to do one that is like, and hopefully this then, this now gets into the hands of a really creative writer who is able to preserve the spirit of Agatha Christie and Do something truly creative and not be sort of bounded in by what they may or may not have felt their loyalty to the original material is. And it may be one of these things where we say, we look back and say, oh, boy, this is such a great series, you just have to skip the first one, you know?

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think you have a point where maybe a lot of this redounds to the source material because I do think the mystery in the source material is awfully thin. When we eventually find out why there are seven clocks without that mental piece, it comes right from the book. And it's like, what? That's what?

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  That's not, you can't build.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  That's a terrible plan.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  You cannot build a mystery around that. That is so abstruse. That is not satisfying. That's the opposite of satisfying. That's like, nope. That's where some of my anger is coming from. My other anger is coming from eavesdropping as a plot device, which I forgive in like

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Shakespeare.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  YA mysteries because.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Whatever, Shakespeare YA mysteries.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Same difference.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  No, but like, nobody ever tells kids anything, so the only way kids get information is by eavesdropping. But like, eavesdropping depends upon you deciding to climb inside the ship robe at exactly the right place and time.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  To overhear what we've already addressed is a non-meeting.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  I just, the meeting is so short, it's so funny.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  It's short and stupid and nothing is said. Anyway.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  All right, so y'all are in for more of this bundle universe with your snooty, snotty friends.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  And more time pieces, and I support the low-backed dresses.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Jazzy music. I support the ambiance.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Production values, great.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Great production values, casting, impeccable.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  See, this is why, maybe that's the difference between this and Masterpiece Mystery. This has a budget. This has a Netflix budget. There's some globetrotting here.

• 17:29Speaker 04

  Also, Glenn, I reject the premise, how does this differ from Masterpiece Mystery? Whom's among us that needed to differ? I just want more.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  No, I know, but like, what is the Netflix of it giving? It seems to me the Netflix of it is giving this big overarching franchisee ridiculousness, which I think doesn't work.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  Well, and in that case, I think we're comparing it less against Masterpiece, which can get really great names and has terrific production values. And more against the sort of tier of, um, there are like BritBox and Acorn that exists Yes. exclusively to cater to people with my appetite and also produce A hundred percent. like a lot of, if you made a Masterpiece mystery production with a Hallmark Theater budget, right? Yes. And like those scratch a certain itch, but not this itch. This is like Right. they get the exact spot and you're like, oh, that's it. Yes, that's right.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  All right, we have arranged ourselves on a spectrum. How many dials do you give Seven Dials? Tell us what you think about Agatha Christie's Seven Dials. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Barry Hardeman, Margaret H. Willison, thank you so much for being here. I couldn't have asked anybody else on this particular show. Thank you.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Thank you, Glenn. Always honored to be here.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Lattimore, and Mike Katz. It was edited by our showrunner Jessica Reedy, and Hello, Kim provides our theme music. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next time.

• 19:10Speaker 00

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