The BBC is using artificial intelligence to bring the voice and likeness of best-selling novelist Agatha Christie to life.
Using restored archival interviews, private letters, and writings researched by a team of Christie experts, the BBC Maestro platform has created a course for aspiring writers by reconstructing Christie’s own voice and insights.
Christie will impart her insights on story structure, cast creation, plot twists, red herrings, and the art of suspense, drawn directly from her own writings and archival interviews.
BBC Maestro has collaborated with a professional actress, Vivien Keene, and visual effects artists to create a faithful representation of Christie’s voice and likeness.
AI-enhanced technology and licensed images, and restored audio recordings have also been used to capture Christie’s presence and voice.
BBC Maestro said the result delivers an experience that feels as though she is speaking directly to the audience.
Christie is the world’s best-selling author, with over two billion books sold, 66 detective novels, 14 short story collections, and the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap.
The course has been curated by leading Christie scholars Dr. Mark Aldridge, Michelle Kazmer, Gray Robert Brown, and Jamie Bernthal-Hooker, with the full support and approval of Agatha Christie’s family.
James Prichard, Agatha Christie’s great-grandson, Chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Limited, said: “The team of academics and researchers that BBC Maestro has assembled have extracted from a number of her writings an extraordinary array of her views and opinions on how to write. Through this course, you truly will receive a lesson in crafting a masterful mystery, in Agatha’s very own words.”
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