DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

AGATHA CHRISTIE'S SEVEN DIALS CREATOR CHRIS CHIBNALL JOINS STARS MIA MCKENNA-BRUCE, EDWARD BLUEMEL AND MARTIN FREEMAN TO TALK ABOUT THIS LATEST ADAPTATION. BY YOLANTHE FAWEHINMI

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STELLAR: Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Caterham with Bundle, left, and Martin Freeman as Superintendent Battle, above

"So I've been a Christie addict all my life.The challenge was how to incorporate all those different tones.

“Could it have an emotional component, too? I think a lot of people don’t know Seven Dials, and that was the delight.

The show's writer, Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall, 55, has been a huge Agatha Christie fan since he was a child. It’s why he says he wanted the adaptation to be “funny, have wit and the energy of the bright young characters” who are in it.

“Seven Dials has all the things you love about Agatha Christie and some of the things that maybe people don’t notice when they think about her writing. It was early on for her. I think it was 1929 when the book was written. So it’s very, very early in her career.”

Mia and costar Edward Bluemel (Sex Education, Killing Eve, My Lady Jane) also hope this new series will “raise a new Agatha Christie generation”.

“I hope that’s what it does,” admits Mia, who will soon be seen playing Ringo Starr's wife Maureen Starkey in the upcoming biopics of the Beatles. “That’s one thing we've all really set out to do, to make it feel a lot more accessible to a younger generation.

“I'd seen the adaptations, but I'd never read Agatha Christie before, because I didn’t do it at school. So I thought I wouldn’t understand it. But now I love her books, since working on this show.”