First we had Bill Nighy in Ordeal by Innocence, and now the BBC has attracted more huge Hollywood names to their latest Agatha Christie adaptation.


Actor John Malkovich and Harry Potter star Rupert Grint are leading the cast of The ABC Murders, with Malkovich playing legendary detective Hercule Poirot and Grint taking on the part of Inspector Crome.

The mini-series will be adapted for TV by Sarah Phelps, the writer behind BBC Christie adaptations The Witness For the Prosecution, And Then There Were None and Ordeal by Innocence.

Also cast in The ABC Murders are Broadchurch’s Andrew Buchan as Franklin Clarke and Twin Peaks: The Return’s Eamon Farren as Cust.

Tara Fitzgerald, Bronwyn James and Freya Mavor have also been confirmed, with more actors still to be announced.

The drama is about the race against time to stop a serial killer who is operating across 1930s Britain, who strikes first at Andover and then Bexhill, leaving a copy of The ABC Railway Guide at each crime scene.

The drama will be produced by Mammoth Screen, the production company behind Victoria and Poldark.

Phelps said, “Set in the seething, suspicious early 1930s, The ABC Murders is a brutal story of violence and lies, the long shadow of the past and the slaughter to come. At its centre, one of the most familiar, famous characters in crime fiction. We may all think we know Poirot but do we really know Hercule?”

It was almost two years ago that the BBC announced a raft of new Christie adaptations, including The ABC Murders, recent hit Ordeal by Innocence starring Bill Nighy and Eleanor Tomlinson and also Death Comes As The End, still yet to be adapted for the BBC.


The ABC Murders begins filming in June.