Revivalism

Revivalism

Author: The Swinging Christies January 5, 2025 Duration: 1:40:48

Mark and Gray ring in the New Year with a discussion of the 1960s trend for… actually not being very 1960s at all! But just how much of Christie’s 1960s writing harks back to the Edwardian and Victorian eras? Did they even ‘swing’ back then??

You can listen to our guest spot on the All About Agatha podcast, here.

You can read our special article for the Agatha Christie website here.

You can read Mark’s paper about Agatha Christie’s Charles Dickens’s Bleak House here.

You can find us on Instagram (as well as X) @Christie_Time. We are on Bluesky at christietime.bsky.social. Please do rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

Our website is ChristieTime.com.

The Swinging Christies is a Christie Time project by Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown.

Next episode: wait and see…

00:00:00 - Opening titles

00:00:51 - Introductory chat

00:04:29 - The Sixties weren’t Swinging for everyone

00:15:38 - Old-new locations

00:58:02 - The Next Generation

01:04:28 - Servants and service

01:14:44 - Reviving the greats: Shakespeare, Tennyson, Austen, Brontë

01:22:37 - Bleak House by Agatha Christie

01:33:57 - Brave monkey puzzle: remembering Christie’s childhood home

01:37:22 - Next episode, how to get in touch

01:38:33 - Closing titles

01:39:01 - Coda


Solutions revealed! - The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, At Bertram’s Hotel


The Swinging Christies: Agatha Christie in the 1960s might seem like a contradiction, but that’s the fascinating territory this podcast explores. Hosted by Dr Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown, it’s a deep and often surprising look at how the Queen of Crime’s later work intersected with a decade of radical change. Forget the stereotypical image of a cosy, unchanging writer; here, we examine how Christie’s stories from that era engaged with shifting attitudes towards youth culture, morality, and social upheaval. Each episode digs into a specific novel or theme, unpacking the subtle-and sometimes not so subtle-ways her writing reflected or reacted to the world of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a rad journey through time that treats her work with serious scholarly insight while embracing the vibrant spirit of the period. You’ll come away from this podcast with a completely refreshed perspective on one of history’s most prolific authors, hearing her familiar plots through a new, decidedly swinging lens.
Author: Language: en-gb Episodes: 38

The Swinging Christies: Agatha Christie in the 1960s
Podcast Episodes
Christmas 2025 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:44
Mark and Gray aka Donner and Blitzen are here with the now-annual Swinging Christies Christmas extravaganza! This time the discussion is about the ITV Agatha Christie’s Poirot David Suchet adaptations of The Mystery of t…
Echoes of the Disappearance [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:44
Gray and Mark are sunning themselves in Puerto de la Cruz for Tenerife’s International Agatha Christie Festival! In the 1920s, Agatha came to this beautiful island to get away from it all, but even later, in the 1960s, t…
Hallowe’en 2025 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:51
Mwahahaha! It’s the now-traditional The Swinging Christies x Hallowe’en extravaganza, and this year Mark and Gray are talking about the recent film adaptation of Hallowe’en Party, A Haunting in Venice (2023). What do we…
Titles in Translation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:38
Gray and Mark meet Mystery Steve who has travelled all the way from Australia! Steve has been examining the way Agatha Christie titles have been translated into other languages. Steve’s project has just hit the 1960s, so…
Interview with Jan Carson at the Belfast Book Festival [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:20
Gray and Mark head to beautiful Belfast to chat to novelist and Agatha Christie fan Jan Carson. Jan has been tackling the Troubles in her work for some time, and we want to discuss with her Christie’s Troubles references…
Agatha Christie and Shirley Jackson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:10
Two wickedly witty women writers, separated only by the Atlantic! This episode, Gray and Mark carry on their American adventures and discuss the similarities and differences between the works of Agatha Christie and Shirl…
Swinging USA: Washington DC (Part 2) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:56
Mrs Christie went to Washington, and Dr Aldridge and Mr Brown are following suit! This episode, we get the train to Washington DC to uncover the truth about how an American Christie fan would REALLY have experienced a Sw…
Swinging USA: New York (Part 1) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:22
Mark and Gray take Manhattan in the first in this very special miniseries recorded in the USA. In New York, Gray and Mark discuss Agatha’s 1960s connections to America, plus their discoveries in papers held at the Prince…
Swinging India [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:48:02
Mark and Gray travel to India (metaphorically) in search of the Queen of Crime! Along the way, they discuss various Hindi and Bengali adaptations, and meet with friend-of-the-podcast and expert adaptor/writer Ayeesha Men…