The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) by Agatha Christie: Part 2

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The following article was is based on the talk that I presented at the 2026 International Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay on September 17th – ‘Roger Ackroyd Day’. It is being shared in three instalments: Part 1 – The novel’s history in print (link), and Part 2 - Adaptations for Stage, Screen and Radio (this segment), and Part 3 – The novel’s legacy (to be published soon). The text of the talk has been modified to better suit the reader. Images shared are generally the slides shared at the presentation.

Part 2: Adaptations for Stage, Screen & Radio.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd quickly became a hot property for Christie and Collins and from the late 1920s to the early 1930s there was a lot of interest in securing the rights to adapt it for stage and film.

Alibi - The Play.

The first adaptation was for the stage, titled Alibi, and it was written by Michael Morton. Morton was 64 when he adapted the play having already had a successful career as a theatrical adaptor on both the British and American stages.

Of greater interest perhaps was the play’s producer – Gerald DuMaurier – father of Daphne Du Maurier. We also learn from press clippings that Agatha attended some of the rehearsals – indicating her interest in how the first ever play adaptation of one of her stories was progressing. We also know that she took her dog, Peter, with her to the rehearsals – later to become Bob in Dumb Witness.

One character change to note in Morton’s adaptation was his replacement of Caroline Sheppard, Dr. Sheppard's middle-aged, curious, gossipy unmarried sister into Caryll Sheppard, an attractive young woman. Christie strongly disliked this alteration as she is known to state that Caroline was one of her favourite characters. But we’ll come back to this later.

The play opened on the 15th of May, 1928 at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre and ran for 250 performances through to the end of the year. It featured Charles Laughton as Hercule Poirot. Laughton was a rising stage star, who’ll we talk more about later.

Samuel French Playscript. For those who may want to read the play, it was first published in 1929, by Samuel French – this first printing is a highly sought out collectible though quite challenging to find. Included in the playscript are two photographs of the empty stage sets – one of living room at Fernly Hall – shown below left - and another of Poirot’s study.

Given the popularity of the novel, the stage production was well documented in the press and numerous photographs of the actors on stage exist. In the two photos above, the left one shows Dr. Sheppard, with the Butler Parker standing, and Roger Ackroyd, while the one on the right shows Dr. Sheppard and Hercule Poirot examining the dead Ackroyd.

The Press had a lot to say about the production and the acting – most of it was favourable and undoubtably Alibi's success was important as a launching pad for what was to become a long and successful stage career for Agatha Christie. This large spread from Tatler magazine (below) with its wonderful caricatures of the actors is just one example of the attention the play garnered.

The Touring Cast. It is important to note that a few months before the play closed in London, a Touring Cast took the play on the road. Since Charles Laughton was still playing Poirot at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre, a new Poirot was needed, and Francis L. Sullivan was cast in that role. It is often thought that Sullivan first appeared as Poirot on stage in 1930, when he took the role in Black Coffee, but it was actually in Alibi in 1928 – first appearing in Croyden in October that year. Sullivan went on to perform Poirot numerous times – not only in Black Coffee but also in The Wasp’s Nest – a play broadcast on BBC TV in 1939 and on stage again in Peril at End House in 1940. He also play Sir Wilfred Robarts in The Witness for the Prosecution on Broadway in 1954.

It is also worth noting that a young 20-year-old Rex Harrison landed his first major acting role as part of this touring group for Alibi. This is 28 years before he created the role of Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady for the Broadway stage and 36 years before its adaptation into the film – a role he won an Oscar for as Best Actor.

The touring play appears to have continued through the summer of 1929. One unique letter Agatha Christie wrote was on January 12th, 1929, after the West End run had finished, in which she says “I hope to have another play on sometime, but plays are very uncertain things”. This clearly informs us that Agatha was already hoping for more theatrical productions ahead – whether she had already started writing Black Coffee or did shortly after she wrote this letter is unknown.

Alibi - The Film.

Just over a year after the touring production of Alibi ended, the story had been picked up for production as a film. It was announced at the end of 1930 that it would be one of six films made by Julius Hagen at Twickenham Studios in 1931. By early 1931, production was well underway.

Many of the actors who were cast for the film were well-known actors in their day. Austin Trevor was cast as Poirot – and according to an interview with him it was because he could perform a convincing French accent. Aside from being the first actor to perform Poirot on film, he went on to feature as Poirot in two more films – Black Coffee in 1931 and Lord Edgware Dies in 1934. He also played Poirot in a 1948 BBC Radio production of Peril at End House. John Roberts, who played Dr. Sheppard, starred in many films in the 1930s including Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent and also in Goodbye, Mr Chips.

In the film, we still have the role of Caryll Sheppard – the younger character who also replaced Caroline in the play. The actor who played Caryll, Mercia Swinburne, an Australian, was primarily a stage actress – this was one of her only forays into film. She went on to be a leading lady on the British stage for over 40 years, and her husband and children were major players in early British film with Ealing studios.

Another actor from this film to highlight is Elizabeth Allen who played Ursula Brown. Shortly after this film, she signed with MGM and moved to Hollywood becoming one of their big stars in the 1930s – taking leading roles in films such as David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities.

As both the film and stage productions have shown us – acting in an Agatha Christie production is clearly a solid resume builder, something that continues to this day.

In mid-March, 1931, six weeks before the film would premiere, Bioscope published some stills from the film set (below), implying production had ended by early March. The film premiered in London on April 28th, 1931 – however, it was not released for general viewing until September 26th. Also shown below are a selection of posters for the film.

There are over a dozen photographs from the production in the archives of the British Film Institute which can be seen below. Sadly, no copy of the film has been found yet. As with other early Christie films that were once thought lost, it is highly likely a print exists somewhere waiting to be discovered.

The first reviews appeared the day after the premiere. In Bioscope the summary review states: Unravelling of a country house murder mystery by French detective with stress duly laid on the inept member from Scotland Yard. A wealth of dialogue rather than any action carries story to genuine surprise climax. Sound portrayals and effective recording. It then goes on to state that it is ‘Suitable as a good second feature offering’. Rather inappropriately, the review provides a full spoiler (which I’m not showing)!

The Fatal Alibi (US).

Ackroyd continued to be a hot property – just ten weeks after the film’s general release a contract was signed on December 11th, 1931, between Agatha Christie, the estate of Michael Morton (as he had died in January that year) and Jed Harris – perhaps the most influential Broadway theatre producer in the 1920s and 30s.

Harris had already appeared on the cover of Time magazine when he was just 28 after producing a string of four massive Broadway hits during the past year and a half. He went on to produce and direct over 30 Broadway hits – including Agatha Christie’s Alibi.

Three weeks after the contract was signed Agatha wrote to Max saying Alibi will be put on in New York after being rewritten for the American market and that Charles Laughton would go there to play Poirot. The script was modified by John Anderson, who had written and adapted a number of plays in America. This version of the script is currently undiscovered.

The production turnaround was quick. Less than two months after the contract was signed, it appeared on Broadway under the title ‘The Fatal Alibi’.

It premiered on February 8th, at the Booth Theatre – that’s the theatre founded by Edwin Booth whose brother, John, assassinated Abraham Lincoln! For a producer of Jed Harris’s stature, the play didn’t last – closing after only 3 weeks, but it is most likely that the Great Depression was hugely impactful as early 1932 was almost the trough of that event with unemployment in New York at 25%.

Charles Laughton directed the play - but after its closure he moved into films and won an Oscar the following year for his leading role in the Private Life of Henry VIII. Following this were starring roles in films such as The Mutiny on the Bounty and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and of course in 1957, he starred as Sir Wilfred Robarts in the film production of The Witness for the Prosecution, along with Marlene Dietrich.

Another actor I want to highlight who performed in The Fatal Alibi was a young Jane Wyatt – at the time only 21 years old. This was one of her first main acting roles, but she soon became a major Hollywood film star, before shifting to television in the 1950s onwards. She may be best remembered for her character Margaret Anderson in the 1950s TV show Father Knows Best which won her three Emmys – but if we have any Star Trek fans in the room she also played the character Amanda Grayson – Spock’s human mother - in both a 1967 Star Trek episode and in the 1986 film Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home.

Signor Bracoli.

The next adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd occurred in late 1932 when it was adapted for the French stage under the title ‘Signor Bracoli’. This adaptation changed the setting to the south of France and the character of Poirot to an Italian Detective – the titular Signor Bracoli. The play premiered on September 7th, 1932 in Paris.

While the exact length of its run is unknown, it was certainly many months as in December the playscript was published for sale by La Petite Illustration. It included an article about the production and stated that the play was still running.

Included in that publication were many photographs of the actors on stage – including these two where we see the actor Lucien Rozenberg, standing in both, who played Cesare Bracoli, and who also Directed the Production. Another notable actor was Alice Field, who played Helene - effectively Caryl Sheppard – as seen on the left in the second photo – still a younger character replacing the older Caroline from the novel.

It’s worth noting that Alice Field had just starred in the 1932 French film ‘Le Coffret de Laque’ – an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s play Black Coffee – which was released earlier in the year. In that, she played Lucie Stenay – the same character as Lucia Amory in the original play. This means that Alice Field participated in two separate French Christie adaptations during the same year, making her a notable figure in these early years of Christie on stage and screen.

Ackroyd on Radio.

By the late 1930s, Radio plays were in vogue. The first radio play Christie wrote was The Yellow Iris which was broadcast by the BBC on November 2nd, 1937. In the States, one of the major producers of radio plays was the Mercury Theatre. In October 1938, a young 23-year-old Orson Welles produced a radio play of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Unaware listeners really thought the US was being invaded by Martians causing panic, yet it proved the impact that effective radio productions could have and arguably launched the Golden Age of American Radio. Within weeks, Campbells soup became the title sponsor of Welles radio theatre and it became branded as the Campbell Playhouse.

In December 1938, the first production from this newly branded playhouse was Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca. A year later, Orson Welles chose to tackle Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Uniquely he chose to voice the characters of both Hercule Poirot and Dr. Sheppard himself. For Caroline Sheppard, Welles cast Edna May Oliver – who was a major Hollywood film star in the 1930s. The timing was a bit of a coup for Welles as just the week prior to this radio broadcast the film ‘Drums Along the Mohawk’ had been released in theatres – in which Miss Oliver starred and even won an Oscar for her role in it.

The book was abridged into a 55-minute radio play, which can fairly easily be found to listen to and is well worth it. Just prior to the original broadcast was a rather fun interaction with Orson Welles and Edna May Oliver.

European Radio.

In Britain and Europe, the 1950s saw a lot of radio productions – with at least 10 productions of various Christie’s works by the BBC during that decade – but surprisingly none was of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

In continental Europe there were three different radio productions of Ackroyd. In 1954 there was a Swiss production in French – which appears lost as this time. In 1956, there was a West German production – a recording of which can be found on Archive.org. And in 1957, a French production – whose recording is accessible on YouTube - though there are likely other places one can find them. In Britain, Ackroyd did not take to the airwaves until 1987 – with John Moffat starring in the first of his 25 radio performances as Poirot.

Later Stage & Screen Adaptations.

As to film adaptations, the narrative makes it especially challenging to adapt this novel for the screen – since Alibi in 1931, I’m not aware of any attempt until 2000 when it was filmed as part of the Poirot series with David Suchet. This adaptation was not without controversy as the story was significantly rewritten to include Inspector Japp and reduce the role of Dr. Sheppard to a more minor character.

Since then, there have been three foreign film adaptations that I’m aware of. I haven’t yet been able to watch any of these versions though I’m certain a diligent person could find them online somewhere.

The newest adaptation is a new stage play by Mark Shanahan – under the same title of the novel. It was first performed in July 2023 at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas. While I haven’t yet seen the play performed, I have read the playscript and I must say it is surprisingly good at how it handles the narrative structure. In this two-act play the first Act is narrated by Dr. Sheppard and the second act guided by Poirot. Mark Shanahan appeared on an episode of All About Agatha in November 2023 where he discussed how his adaptation was received and approved by Agatha Christie Ltd and the interview is well worth a listen.

Final Instalment.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to published the third instalment looking at the legacy of this novel. Subscribers will automatically receive a notification when any article is published on this site. If you haven't yet subscribed, click the link in the menu selections at the top of this page.

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