About the Play:

A Murder Is Announced is a full-length murder mystery adapted for the stage by Leslie Darbon from one of Agatha Christie's most popular novels. Filled with secrets, suspense, beguiling characters and sardonic humour, this stage adaptation features Miss Marple as the amateur sleuth who untangles the web of mystery and deceit, bringing the criminal to face his just deserts. 

A Murder is Announced is everything one wants in an old-fashioned English detective mystery. Miss Marple solves one of her most intriguing mysteries in this stage adaptation of one of The Queen of Crime's most lauded novels. A Murder Is Announced begins the way its title suggests – a notice appears in the morning paper announcing the time and place of a murder to occur in Miss Blacklock's Victorian house. The victim is not one of several occupants, temporary and permanent, but an unexpected and unknown visitor. What follows is a classic Agatha Christie puzzle of mixed motives, concealed identities, a second death, a determined Inspector grimly following the twists and turns, and Miss Marple on hand to provide the final solution at some risk to herself in a dramatic confrontation scene just before the final curtain.

A Murder is Announced was the fourth of twelve novels to feature the character of Miss Marple and the first of Christie's works featuring the "sensibly heeled" sleuth on stage or screen. A Murder Is Announced opened in London at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1977.

Cast: 7 female, 5 male

What people say:

"Had the first night audience on the edge of their seats." — Evening Post

"Re-enter Agatha with another whodunit hit, another of her fiendishly ingenious murder mysteries." — London Evening News

"Most of Dame Agatha's stage mysteries are adaptations of her novels; this one is done, and well condensed, by Leslie Darbon." — The New York Times

About the Adapter:

Leslie Darbon is a British dramatist. He wrote plays for the stage and teleplays for the BBC. Among his plays are two farces written with Richard Harris. He also adapted two Agatha Christie novels for the stage.

About the Author:

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and, in many languages, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote 66 crime novels, 150 short story collections, over 20 plays, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott. Her work includes Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, and the genre-defining And Then There Were None. In addition several of her original works were adapted for the stage by third parties.