Martin Freeman "would like to give Columbo a go": Netflix's new Agatha Christie adaptation team talk petty crimes, bubble baths and the all-time detective greats
The Queen of Crime is back with an entourage
Snow, flu and going back to the office. January is a pretty bleak month, full stop. Then add on the horrors of Dry January, Veganuary, and the very optimistic exercise / healthy eating / joyless regimes a scarily vast proportion of the public insist on for about two weeks. Back the f*ck up, January.
But if a cosy crime caper can keep the January blues at bay, Netflix's brand new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials Mystery should be available on NHS prescription, serving up a criminally good cast and enough twists and turns to keep your sleuthing brain from freezing over.
It's 1925 and a country house party turns deadly; Lady Eileen "Bundle" Brent is compelled to investigate the chilling murder, under the nose of Superintendent Battle who is assisting the mystery that has altered Bundle's life.
We caught up with star Martin Freeman and writer Chris Chibnall’s to find out more about the brilliant adaptation. Packed with brilliant names — with Freeman joined by Helena Bonham Carter, emerging acting genius of Edward Bluemel (Born with Teeth) and Mia McKenna Bruce (How to Have Sex) — we talked about everything from tube etiquette to who they’d team up with for a crime-fighting duo…
1. Miss Marple and Columbo reboot dreams
When you hear about a new crime drama, it’s easy to roll your eyes and think surely they can’t make anything new. But when you hear it’s an Agatha Christie special, you know you’re going to get an ingenious, gregarious, and pertinacious heroine, which is exactly what Seven Dial's Lady Eileen ‘Bundle’ is, quickly joining the ranks of beloved detectives from TV, film, and literature. But when it comes to other sleuths, our cast have a few ideas of who they’d like to be teamed up with.
“I’d want someone smarter than me,” Martin Freeman mused.
“I’d like to give Columbo a go. I like his MO of 'you think I’m dumb, but I’m going to pull the rug out from underneath you,' when everyone is underestimating him,” he continued.
“I think I’d go Miss Marple,” Chris Chibnall countered.
“Because she gets into all those interesting places around 20th-century society. The brilliance of Miss Marple is that no one notices her – she’s the one in the corner knitting, seeing everything. I’d love to be a valet or secretary to her, I’d be very happy with that.”
Essentially, what it boiled down to was how much they would be noticed - or not, in Martin & Chris’ cases, opting for the “quieter, less show-offy” detectives – a truly British answer if ever we’ve seen one.
2. They love a Netflix binge watch
Netflix can really be the gift that keeps on giving, especially when it comes to seriously watchable series, be it crime or comedy. Thankfully, being a writer and an actor doesn’t take the magic out of a good old gogglebox watch – and the cast have some reccos of their own.
What does someone who has penned Broadchurch watch? You might be worried it would be something intimidatingly Kafka-esque, but luckily Chris Chibnall’s most recent watch was Stranger Things – don’t worry, he’s up to date, so no accidental spoilers were shared.
“I think 'The Beast in Me' was my most recent one,” Martin remembered.
“When I was in Canada, I watched Death by Lightning about President Garfield with Michael Shannon and the man who killed him, which was played by Matthew McFayden,”
Martin assured us that the reveal of the murderer wasn’t in fact a spoiler (he was correct). ‘I watched four episodes of that in the bath, actually.”
Bringing us onto…
3. Martin Freeman is a bath-watcher
No, not in the sense that he stands entranced outside of a Bed Bath and Beyond, salivating at the beautiful tubs on display through the window. Like many of us, he loves a good bathtime setup – we’re talking candles, wine, bubbles, lowlighting, and of course, the essential laptop-propped-on-a-chair.
It’s rare to get an OMG SNAP moment in an interview that’s completely unrehearsed, unplanned, or pre-researched, but that’s exactly what we had with Martin Freeman’s bath confession. As coincidences would have it, I had watched the preview episode of the new series in a rare bath at my sister’s house the night before. Cue bonding over watching TV in the bath.
“It’s either wine or tea, but always with a glass of water,” Martin revealed when comparing notes on the optimal bath conditions. Does he indulge with candles in the bath? “Sometimes,” he acknowledged. “I have a very specific set up.”
“I didn’t realise there would be a whole sub-genre of bath watchers,” Chris laughed, watching us play bath-ping-pong back and forth.
“It feels very Arthur Dent,” he chuckled, nudging Martin in a nod to his role as the hapless protagonist in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
4. There’s no shortage of petty crimes they’d ban
As once starring as Sherlock's partner in sleuthing Watson, Martin Freeman is no stranger to crime-fighting, and Chris Chibnall's writing repetoire regularly calls on a cool cold case. But would the duo turn villain, and do they have petty crimes they would love to arrest people for? Absolutely. Think Phoebe in Friends when she finds the police badge. Think about all the irritating habits of Londoners on public transport, walking slowly, or the popcorn-throwing teens in cinemas. Who would be getting booked if Chris and Martin were in power for a day? Actually, quite a few of us, by the sounds of it…
“For me, anyone on their phone in a theatre or cinema,” Martin confessed.
“I’d love to arrest people for that, it drives me mad. As an audience member, as a doer, it’s the scourge of modern society,” he laughed. “It’s a good job I’m never going to be in power.”
“I’d have a version of that,” Chris agreed.
“I live in Dorset and come to London a lot, so it’s a lot of train journeys. For me, it’s people on very long calls on speakerphone on the train – that’s the one. There was a guy behind me recently on a gaming headset, on a call about sacking people,” Chris continued.
“Was he doing a character study on how to be the most obnoxious person?” he wondered. Quite possibly by the sounds of it.
The Seven Dials Mystery is streaming on Netflix UK from 15th January.
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