The Agatha Christie Festival 2013

©AgathaChristieWeb

Recently, I attended the Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay and had an amazing time. As well as going to special festival events, I also got a chance to see Greenway House and other important landmarks in Chritie's life, like the location of her honeymoon, The Grand Hotel Torquay. 

©AgathaChristieWeb 

The Grand Hotel acted as the festival's 'hub' and provided information, competition entry forms and more importantly, cake! 

The Torquay Museum was the host of a marvelous reconstruction of Poirot's flat 203b Whitehaven Mansions from the TV series. It featured Poirot's desk, bookshelves complete with his collection of Ariadne Oliver's books, fireplaces and armchairs. It also featured David Suchet's Poirot costume and cane and Joan Hickson's iconic Miss Marple attire from the popular BBC series. Sadly, due to restictions, I wasn't allowed to take photos of this amazing exhibition, but it was a fantastic homage to Agatha Christie's work and helped to celebrate 25 years of Agatha Christie's Poirot. 

We also saw a play: Go Back For Murder, which is a version of Agatha's popular Poirot novel Five Little Pigs. It had a talented cast including Morag Sims, Lysette Anthony and Liza Goddard. A highly recommended play. 

©AgathaChristieWeb

For me one of the festival highlights, the Evening Vintage Bus trip took you on a tour of the Agatha Christie Mile. 'Barnaby' the Bus gave us an unforgettable experience which included a visit to Greenway House, traveling around in style and comfort and some fantastic fish and chips from Brixham. The trip reminded me somewhat of the Miss Marple novel Nemesis, where her recently deceased friend Jason Rafiel posthumously sends her off on a bus trip and to find the truth about the murder of Verity Hunt. However, nobody was murdered during the course of the trip! The bus will feature in Dead Man's Folly, part of the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot. I will write a separate blog post on this trip.

I will write a post about Greenway House when I review locations used in Poirot. 

The Agatha Christie was a fantastic experience and I highly recommend you go down there next year.