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BBC Radio 7

Agatha Christie

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Drama: Crime

Classic stories by the mistress of the whodunit.

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Agatha Christie: The 8.55 to Baghdad

Agatha Christie: The 8.55 to Baghdad: Episode 1

Documentaries

Factual: Life Stories

The 8.55 to Baghdad

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Agatha Christie, The 8.55 to Baghdad, Episode 1

Andrew Eames retraces the journey of Agatha Christie after the break-up of her marriage.

Andrew Eames retraces the journey of Agatha Christie who, after the break-up of her marriage, made a spontaneous decision to travel alone to Baghdad.

"Her adventure had been taken at a moment of major personal change; mine was beginning at a moment that could change the world".

In 1928, crime writer Agatha Christie made a spur-of-the-moment decision to go on holiday, alone, to Iraq. Then in her late thirties she was already a popular and successful novelist, but her 14 year marriage to Archie Christie had recently ended and her comfortable life at Sunningdale had become oppressive. 

In the first of five readings from his book, Andrew Eames describes how 75 years later on, on the eve of the second Gulf War, he set out to trace Agatha's journey and explore her reasons for making it. 

Abridged by Laurence Wareing.
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio in 2004.

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Andrew Eames retraces the journey of Agatha Christie after the break-up of her marriage

Andrew Eames retraces the journey of Agatha Christie who, after the break-up of her marriage, made a spontaneous decision to travel alone to Baghdad

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Agatha Christie

The 8.55 to Baghdad

Episode 1

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