An interview with Sophie Révil, the producer of Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie

Les Petits Meurtres quickly became a must-watch series, yet it all started with a gamble…

I traveled to London to ask Agatha Christie’s descendants if they would agree to an adaptation of her novels set in France. And they accepted! We have been the only ones granted permission to set aside Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple to create our own characters – French investigators. They were really pleased with the first two episodes, and we are now working closely together. It is not unheard of for them to visit us on the film sets. There were 11 episodes in the first season, and 27 in the second. We are now broadcast in more than 60 countries and each episode is watched by almost five million people in France alone.

Why did you choose to set the stories in France? Was it difficult?

Agatha Christie created brilliant intrigues that plunge audiences into the human soul, a world of lies, masks, and pretense. Her books always feature bodies in the cupboards and the revelation of hidden grudges. These are timeless, universal stories, which made it easy to transpose into another setting. The main thing was to create authentically French characters while remaining faithful to the original work. Commissioner Laurence is pretentious and self-satisfied, just like Hercule Poirot. And in keeping with the novels, there are young female roles ahead of the times – as embodied by our feminist, ill-mannered journalist Alice Avril.

What were your inspirations when adapting the novels for television?

I really liked Gosford Park, a movie combining crime and comedy directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes (the screenwriter behind Downtown Abbey). Our shots are heavily influenced by Hitchcock’s filming style, with unique framing, dramatic camera movements, and the extensive use of music. Commissioner Laurence is our Cary Grant!

Each season takes place in a different time period. What visual hallmarks are found throughout the series?

The world we have created is not completely realistic and borrows certain aspects from graphic novels. There are beautiful cars, bright colors, magnificent furniture, and astonishing costumes. Ours is one of the biggest budgets on the France 2 channel – each episode costs 2.5 million euros. It’s an haute-couture series!

Season two takes place in the 1960s, a time when femininity was exacerbated. Given that our costumes are part of the visual landscape, we spend a lot of time developing them. The colors are bold, such as sky blue and shades of green no one would wear today. Society was rigid and interactions between genders were codified – something Alice Avril criticizes constantly. We highlight a lot of feminist issues through her character.

The following season will be set in 1971 with new characters. The 1970s were just as exciting, with futuristic interior design, geometry, and clothing ranging from ultra-sexy (the miniskirt) to very old-fashioned (long-point collars). What makes it even more interesting is that it was the height of machismo with a patriarchal, masculine vision of society – one that is still subtly present today. As a result, our main character is France’s first female police commissioner.

Why did you decide to film the whole series in the Hauts-de-France region?

We were looking for a British aesthetic, with red bricks and cloudy skies. Northern France was one of the country’s richest regions when it was the center of the textile and mining industries. It is much poorer today, but the neo-Flemish architecture and privately-owned, well-maintained châteaux still remain. We filmed all over the region, from the city of Lille to the beaches on the Opal Coast.

Agatha Christie’s novels have been adapted many times for film and television. How did you create something radically different?

We have blended crime fiction and comedy, using the plots from the novels and making our own characters part of the storyline. We retained the witty comebacks so typical of the British sense of humor, while adding a very French boulevard theater comedy style. Alice Avril also generally investigates undercover. In “Mélodie Mortelle,” she is hired as an artist for a record company after one of their pop singers is murdered. Commissioner Laurence then finds himself disguised as a woman to infiltrate the Lille Opera in “L’homme au complet marron.” We also develop the novels’ storylines with new twists. In our series, many of the witnesses come to a sticky end!

Text by: Juliette Démas,

Translation from French by: Alexander Uff