Radio Recap: Agatha Christie's Poirot

Prior to World War II, the conventional wisdom on radio seemed to be that audiences liked mystery programs but they adored comedy programs. Although mystery programs were part of radio very early on, it was only really in the post-war era that radio was flooded with mystery shows as detective programs brought in big ratings.

In an earlier Radio Recap I looked at the Mutual 1942-1943 anthology series Murder Clinic, whose ranks included various famous sleuths by world-famous authors - such as Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie. Mutual weren't the leader in radio (far from it) but, while lacking in comedy stars, they put a lot of effort into their mystery programs. In 1945, during the start of the detective boom, Mutual returned to Poirot, this time in his own series!

Agatha Christie's Poirot aired on Mutual from February 22, 1945 to February 17, 1946. Harold Huber starred as Poirot (he also produced the show). After the Mutual run ended, Huber brought the series to CBS as a daily 15-minute program and it ran in that format 'til the end of 1947 - but I'm concerned with the Mutual run here.

The fussy little Belgian detective and his "little grey cells" is now known to have been something of a love/hate figure to his creator, Agatha Christie. In fact, by the time this radio program began in 1945 she was getting tired of writing about him, even though he was her most popular creation. She'd already written what would 30 years later be published as the final Poirot novel (Curtain) but certainly sponsoring Poirot for a US radio program could have only served to make him more famous. And indeed, Agatha Christie did sponsor the program, in fact she appears in the premiere episode!

The first episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot features Poirot relocating to the USA, where he'd spend his run on Mutual (meaning Mutual could cast local actors without worrying about passable British accents). He took on a new secretary, Abbie Thresher (who had a bit of Miss Marple's personality) and Inspector Stevens to be the reliably confounded police official. At the close of the broadcast Mutual made an attempt to link up to England so that Agatha Christie could appear over the airwaves and give her blessing to the new show. Unfortunately, the link up didn't pan out but Mutual instead played a recording they'd wisely made in advance, in which Agatha Christie wishes Poirot well in the USA (probably not good riddance).

Agatha Christie's Poirot only really stands apart from other post-war detective heroes because of the stature of Christie's stories. Huber definitely sounds appropriately accented and fussy in the lead role but the mysteries themselves are not too different from what other radio shows of the time provided. Huber's performance and lingering affection for Christie's work are the best reasons for revisiting this series - otherwise it's about as good as other Mutual detective shows of the era (ie, Charlie Chan, Crime Club, Nick Carter, Murder Is My Hobby).

You can hear episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot at the Internet Archive.