Festival 2022

Browse the full programme for this year's Festival 10-17 September. Our online box office via Ticketsource will open on 27 May.


Important Notice

Please note: that to book multiple tickets for multiple events at once using a shopping basket, please visit the Agatha Christie Festival Ticketsource site directly by clicking this link: ticketsource.co.uk/agathafestival

And Then There Were None

Festival Fringe 9

Monday 12th September 2022, 7:30pm | The Little Theatre, St Mark’s Road, Meadfoot, Torquay TQ1 2EL

Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None

Monday 12 September to Saturday 17 September

TOADS Theatre Company presents Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’, directed by Alec Stokes at The Little Theatre, Torquay.

Read more
Poirot – prophet for a secular age? with Dr. Hannah Strømmen

Event 13

Tuesday 13th September 2022, 11:00am | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Poirot – prophet for a secular age? with Dr. Hannah Strømmen

Senior Lecturer in biblical studies at the University of Chichester, Hannah explores the references and allusions to faith in Christie’s Poirot mysteries and reflects on the author’s stance on morality and ethics in a secular age.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
Agatha the Traveller, with Tom Marchant, Black Tomato

Event 14

Tuesday 13th September 2022, 12:30pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Agatha the Traveller, with Tom Marchant, Black Tomato

To mark the centenary of Agatha Christie’s Grand Tour, Black Tomato has been appointed by the Christie Estate as the official travel partner to bring the monumental trip to life. Here Tom Marchant gives us a taster of a trip of a lifetime, seeing the world though Agatha’s eyes and footsteps.

Tickets: FREE but booking essential

Read more
Crime of Passion: Investigating Love and Agatha Christie with Dr Charlotte Beyer

Event 15

Tuesday 13th September 2022, 3:00pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Crime of Passion: Investigating Love and Agatha Christie with Dr Charlotte Beyer

Dr Charlotte Beyer is Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. She is the author of two single-author scholarly monographs to date, Murder in a Few Words: Gender, Genre and Location in the Crime Short Story (McFarland, 2020), and Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Literature: Writing Back to History and Oppression (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021). She has published six edited books, including Teaching Crime Fiction (Palgrave 2018). Charlotte has published widely on crime fiction and contemporary literature and is currently writing a book on Agatha Christie.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00 / Students £5

Read more
Bloody Bombay: how Agatha Christie inspired modern Indian crime fiction with Vaseem Khan and Ruby Gupta

Event 16

Tuesday 13th September 2022, 5:00pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Bloody Bombay

How Agatha Christie inspired modern Indian crime fiction with Vaseem Khan and Ruby Gupta

Best-selling authors Vaseem Khan and the Festival’s International Writer-in-Residence, Dr Ruby Gupta, examine the spectacular rise of crime fiction set in, and about, India.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
The A B Sea Murders: A River Boat Tour

Festival Fringe 12

Tuesday 13th September 2022, 6:30pm | Beacon Quay, Haldon Pier, Torquay

The A B Sea Murders

SOLD OUT

Join us for a boat trip around the Bay, passing beaches loved by Agatha or featured in her works. Local author Matt Newbury will be providing a commentary, while there will be period music and a full bar on board.

Extra date added on Tuesday 13th September​​​

Tickets: £20

Read more
Agatha Christie – from Stage to Screen with Dr Mark Aldridge

Event 17

Tuesday 13th September 2022, 7:00pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Agatha Christie – from Stage to Screen with Dr Mark Aldridge

Mark Aldridge is Associate Professor of Screen Histories at Solent University.  His publications include the books Agatha Christie’s Poirot: the Greatest Detective in the World (2020), Agatha Christie on Screen (2016) and The Birth of British Television (2011).

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
100 Years of the Mysterious Affair at Styles with Dr John Curran

Event 18

Wednesday 14th September 2022, 11:00am | Seminar A/B, Old Library, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4SB

100 Years of the Mysterious Affair at Styles with Dr John Curran

SOLD OUT An opportunity to view primary sources from the University of Exeter's Special Collections' archive of correspondence and papers from the office of Agatha Christie's literary agent, Hughes Massie & Co Ltd. and hear internationally recognised expert on Christie's work, Dr John Curran, speak about how Agatha Christie came to write her very first crime novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and how it influenced her writing career.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
Agatha, Bernard & Crime: The ABC Murders with Carla Valentine

Event 19

Wednesday 14th September 2022, 11:00am | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Agatha, Bernard & Crime: The ABC of Murder with Carla Valentine

Carla Valentine is a qualified mortician, curator of Barts Pathology Museum and author of Past Mortems and Murder Isn’t Easy.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
God and the Little Grey Cells with Dr Dan Clanton (USA)

Event 20

Wednesday 14th September 2022, 12:30pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

God and the Little Grey Cells with Dr Dan Clanton (USA)

Dan Clanton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Doane University, Nebraska, USA.

Tickets: FREE but booking essential

Read more
Weapon of Choice: Agatha Christie and Poisons with Dr Kathryn Harkup

Event 22

Wednesday 14th September 2022, 3:00pm | The Library, Devon & Exeter Institution, Exeter EX1 1EZ

Weapon of Choice: Agatha Christie and Poisons

with Dr Kathryn Harkup

Kathryn is a chemist and author. She completed a doctorate on her favourite chemicals, phosphines. Her first book was the international best-seller A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie which was shortlisted for a Mystery Readers International Macavity Award and a BMA Book Award. Join her for fascinating insights into Christie’s ‘weapon of choice’ through a chemist’s eyeview.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
Agatha Christie and the Ghosts of Devon: performance by David Phillips

Event 23

Wednesday 14th September 2022, 7:00pm | The Undercroft, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Agatha Christie and the Ghosts of Devon: performance by David Phillips

David has studied the ghost stories of Torbay for nearly 30 years now and is certain that Agatha Christie would have been aware of most of them during her lifetime.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
All About Agatha Live! Agatha Christie’s Greatest Novel?

Event 24

Wednesday 14th September 2022, 7:00pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

All About Agatha Live! Agatha Christie’s Greatest Novel?

A panel discussion chaired by Kemper Donovan with Dr John Curran, Dr Jamie Bernthal-Hooker, Carla Valentine and Dr Mark Aldridge

A unique opportunity to hear from four Christie experts whose combined knowledge of the Christie oeuvre is unparalleled. In this panel debate they will challenge each other with their own pitches for Agatha’s greatest novel.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
Mystery in Mansions: Christie and the English Country House with Jeremy Musson

Event 26

Thursday 15th September 2022, 11:00am | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Mystery in Mansions: Christie and the English Country House with Jeremy Musson

Jeremy Musson is an architectural historian, author and journalist. His books include How to Read a Country House and English Country House Interiors. Here he casts an architectural historian’s eye on the Country House as it features in so many of Christie’s novels and shares new insights into her work.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
Agatha in Africa with Michael, Stanley and Bryony

Event 27

Thursday 15th September 2022, 12:30pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

Agatha in Africa with Michael, Stanley and Bryony

Michael Stanley is the writing team of South Africans Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Their new novel A Deadly Covenant is available in North America and will be published in the UK by Orenda Books in December. In this entertaining broadcast they focus on Agatha Christie's less well-known knowledge of Sub-Saharan Africa. They will be joined by author Bryony Rheam who won the 'Write Your Own Christie' competition in 2014. She lives in Zimbabwe and has made a study of Agatha Christie's visit to Rhodesia. Her latest mystery novel is titled All Come to Dust.

Tickets: FREE but booking essential

Read more
The Importance of Being Poirot with Professor Jeremy Black

Event 28

Thursday 15th September 2022, 3:00pm | Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay TQ2 5JE

The Importance of Being Poirot

with Professor Jeremy Black

Historian Professor Jeremy Black explains how Agatha Christie’s detective character Hercule Poirot is inseparable from the turbulent age in which the author lived. Black finds significant social commentary in Christie’s novels.

Tickets: £10.00 / £8.00

Read more
Agatha Christie and The Man in the Brown Suit with Dr Jamie Bernthal-Hooker

Event 29

Thursday 15th September 2022, 7:00pm | Kents Cavern, Torquay TQ1 2JF

Agatha Christie and The Man in the Brown Suit

with Dr Jamie Bernthal-Hooker. Plus guided tour of Kents Cavern by James Hull and a glass of prosecco or orange juice.

Christie expert Jamie Bernthal-Hooker’s talk takes places inside the atmospheric prehistoric caves that form Kents Cavern in Torquay. Partly inspired by her Grand Tour, The Man in the Brown Suit was written in Agatha Christie’s flat in London in 1924 with Agatha Christie evoking exotic African landscapes from memory. Kents Cavern plays a role in the novel as Hampsley Cavern.

Tickets: £25.00

Read more
Festival Lit-Hop

Festival Fringe 10

Thursday 15th September 2022, 7:00pm | Meet at Paignton Picture House, Torbay Road, Paignton.

Festival Lit-Hop

This year we are hosting our literary take on a bar crawl, visiting some quirky and unusual venues around Paignton Harbour, with readings, poetry, music and unexpected happenings along the way.

Tickets: FREE but booking essential

Read more
Charles Court Opera presents Express G&S

Event 30

Thursday 15th September 2022, 7:30pm | Palace Theatre, Paignton

Charles Court Opera presents Express G&S

All aboard for a murderous musical mystery tour as the ‘Masters of Gilbert & Sullivan in small spaces’, the Charles Court Opera company. present Express G&S, a new spoof of the classic railway mystery.

Read more
Dinner at Greenway

Festival Fringe 11

Thursday 15th September 2022, 7:30pm | Greenway House, Galmpton, near Brixham TQ5 0ES

Dinner at Greenway

– with Dr Mark Aldridge

SOLD OUT We’re delighted to team up with the National Trust at Agatha Christie’s former holiday home at Greenway House to host an exclusive and intimate dinner for just 20 guests.

Tickets: £125.00. Limited to 20 tickets only.

Read more

Kindly Supported by:

Project Partners: