Agatha Christie's Poirot (radio series)

Extract from the Harrisburg Telegraph promoting the series

Agatha Christie's Poirot is a series of radio stories created by the Mutual Broadcasting Network (MBS) and broadcast in the U.S. between 1945 and 1946. The series comprised some 51 half-hour episodes broadcast weekly and featuring Harold Huber as Hercule Poirot. In publicity materials, news articles of the time and research works, the series is cited variously as The Adventures of M. Hercule Poirot, Hercule Poirot or Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. However the announcer during the broadcast introduces the program as Agatha Christie's Poirot. The episodes were directed by Carl Eastman with scripts by Martin Stern.

Although the series uses Agatha Christie's Poirot character, the plots of these stories are wholly original and not based on her original works. In these adaptations, Poirot works in New York assisted by his secretary Abigail Fletcher and Inspector Stevens. Agatha Christie introduced the first episode. This was to have been done live through a shortwave link up but was frustrated by atmospheric conditions. The station then substituted a pre-recorded version. In this introduction, Christie said that she hoped Poirot's "new career on the radio will make many new friends for him among a wider public."

The series was very popular but came to an end on 17 Feb 1946 after a lawsuit in which the scriptwriter Martin Stern sued the Eastman and Huber for selling the scripts independently without compensating him. Thereafter, Huber moved on to reprise his Poirot character in the CBS radio series Mystery of the Week.

List of episodes

Records of the broadcasts are incomplete and not all the titles of the episodes are known. Unless footnotes otherwise, most of the entries below are sourced from "The Definitive Radio Log of Agatha Christie's Poirot with Harold Huber".

#	Title	Original airdate	Availability
1	The Case of the Careless Victim	22 Feb 1945	available
2	Murder in Red or Murder in Bed	1 Mar 1945
3	The Case of Murder By The Sea	8 Mar 1945
4	The Case of the Little Sticks	15 Mar 1945
5	Title Unknown	22 Mar 1945
6	Title Unknown	29 Mar 1945
7	Title Unknown	05 Apr 1945
8	Title Unknown	12 Apr 1945
9	Title Unknown	19 Apr 1945
10	Title Unknown	26 Apr 1945
11	Murder Wears A Mask	03 May 1945	available
12	The Case of Death Points A Finger	10 May 1945
13	Death In The Golden Gate	17 May 1945	available
14	Title Unknown	24 May 1945
15	Title Unknown	31 May 1945
16	Title Unknown	07 Jun 1945
17	Title Unknown	14 Jun 1945
18	Title Unknown	21 Jun 1945
19	Title Unknown	28 Jun 1945
20	Title Unknown	05 Jul 1945
21	Rendezvous with Death	12 Jul 1945	available
22	The Deadest Man In the World	19 Jul 1945	available
23	The Book and The Corpse	26 Jul 1945
24	Title Unknown	02 Aug 1945
25	Title Unknown	09 Aug 1945
26	Title Unknown	16 Aug 1945
27	Murder By Request	23 Aug 1945
28	The Three Pauls	30 Aug 1945
29	The Wedding Band Murder	06 Sep 1945
30	The Adventure of The Money-Mad Ghoul	13 Sep 1945	available
31	The Parallel Murder Case	20 Sep 1945
32	The Jade Elephant	30 Sep 1945
33	Title Unknown	07 Oct 1945
34	Title Unknown	12 Oct 1945
35	Title Unknown	19 Oct 1945
36	Title Unknown	26 Oct 1945
37	Title Unknown	02 Nov 1945
38	Title Unknown	09 Nov 1945
39	Title Unknown	16 Nov 1945
40	The Trail Led to Death	23 Nov 1945	available
41	Murder Is A Private Affair	30 Nov 1945	available
?	Title Unknown (repeat of #41 or early broadcast of #42?)	05 Dec 1945
42	The Bride Wore Fright	07 Dec 1945	available
43	The Letter and The Mad Woman	14 Dec 1945
44	Title Unknown	21 Dec 1945
45	Title Unknown	28 Dec 1945
46	Title Unknown	04 Jan 1946
47	Title Unknown	11 Jan 1946
48	Title Unknown	18 Jan 1946
49	Title Unknown	25 Jan 1946
50	Title Unknown	31 Jan 1946
50	Title Unknown	10 Feb 1946
51	Title Unknown	17 Feb 1946

External links

• Information about the radio series at Great Detectives.net
• Information about the radio series at tv Tropes.org

See also

• Agatha Christie's Poirot (disambiguation)