Learn To Write Mystery with Agatha Christie

BBC Maestro offers a new class with a most unexpected teacher

(Image above is of an altered screenshot on BBC Maestro’s website advertising the course, used for editorial purposes only.)

BBC Maestro’s newest class is also one of its most unique and most ambitious. How would you like to learn how to write a mystery from the Grande Dame of Mystery herself, Agatha Christie?

Impossible, you say.

BBC Maestro begs to differ.

In what had to be an enormously arduous task, the online learning platform partnered with Agatha Christie Limited to develop a course that does exactly that. How? Here’s a link to an article with an in-depth explanation of the process. AI was involved, but this isn’t some random AI generated Agatha. The technology was used (I believe) to mimic Christie’s voice and facial image, which were then matched to the movements of an actor named Vivien Keene.

The amount of work that went into the set design, costuming, and direction of this course is mind boggling. The lectures have been reworked from sections of Christie’s writing and letters by a group of researchers and scholars including Dr. Mark Aldridge, whose books examining Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot I’ve enjoyed. Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard, and great-grandson, James Prichard, also worked closely with the team to bring Christie to life on the screen. This was a immense labor of love to bring to life and I respect that.

I feel like this is a bit of a slippery slope, though. Agatha Christie’s been gone for forty-nine years now. No matter how many visual effects and tricks you use, it’s still just an illusion of the author and not the real deal. What other classes with no-longer-of-this-world celebrities teaching us how to do things will be popping up in the future?

But I’ve signed up for the course out of sheer curiousity. My initial thoughts? This is a little weird. I’ve watched the prologue and first lesson so far. It’s a bit uncanny valley at the moment. Kind of like when Kurt Russell was aged down for whichever Guardians of the Galaxy movie he was in. It looks okay but simultaneously not quite okay.

I’ll let you guys know what I think of the course once I’ve finished it. And, hey, if you’re taking it as well, chime in down in the comments with your thoughts.