Julius Green, Sophie Hannah & Kate Rhodes | Agatha Christie Anniversary
Sun 26 Apr 2026 | 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Although Agatha Christie died fifty years ago this year, her books have now sold over a billion copies in English and a billion in translation. Join our panel of experts – award-winning theatre producer and entertainment historian, Julius Green; bestselling writer of crime fiction, including the new series of Poirot novels, Sophie Hannah; and acclaimed crime-writer and poet Kate Rhodes – as they celebrate Christie’s enduring appeal and legacy, and attempt to solve the mystery of how she did it.
Chaired by broadcaster Alex Clark.
Venue: Palmerston Room
Duration: 1 hour
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Author Biographies
Julius Green is an Olivier award-winning theatre producer and a Fellow of the Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, University of London. The leading authority on Agatha Christie’s work as a dramatist, he produced the 2001 Agatha Christie Theatre Festival (a 12-week season of Christie’s complete stage works as then known), and in 2006 founded the Agatha Christie Theatre Company for Bill Kenwright Ltd. In 2012 he was invited to write the introduction to HarperCollins’ 60th anniversary edition of The Mousetrap and Other Plays, and in 2015 HarperCollins published his book Agatha Christie; A Life in Theatre.
Sophie Hannah is a Sunday Times, New York Times and Amazon Kindle UK No. 1 bestselling writer of crime fiction. She writes contemporary psychological thrillers and, at the request of Agatha Christie’s family and estate, the new series of Hercule Poirot novels. Sophie’s murder mystery musical, The Mystery of Mr E, was released as a feature film in 2023, directed by Martyn Tott. In 2023, Sophie won the Crime Writers Association’s Dagger in the Library Award. She lives with her husband, children and dog in Cambridge, where she is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College.
Kate Rhodes is an acclaimed crime novelist and an award-winning poet, selected by Val McDermid’s New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for her debut, Crossbones Yard. She has been nominated twice for the prestigious CWA Dagger in the Library award, and is one of the founders of the Killer Women writing group. She lives in Cambridge with her husband, the writer and film-maker Dave Pescod, and visited the Scilly Isles every year as a child, which gave her the idea for the critically acclaimed Isles of Scilly Mysteries series.
Chair Biography
Alex Clark is a broadcaster and journalist, who writes for many publications including the Guardian, the Observer, and the Times Literary Supplement. She is a co-host on the Graham Norton Book Club for Audible and hosts the TLS podcast. She is a professional chairperson and appears all over the UK at Cheltenham, Hay and the Southbank Centre. Alex is a festival Honorary Patron.
