A new Agatha Christie adaptation has arrived, just in time for cozy winter viewing! “Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials” is a fast-paced adventure based on the 1929 novel “The Seven Dials Mystery.”
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When a lavish country house party ends in murder, a witty young aristocrat sets out to solve the mystery. The period-set three-episode limited series updates Christie’s original story for modern viewers with a twisty plot, international intrigue, and engaging characters.
Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials (2026) is now on Netflix
Starring Mia McKenna-Bruce, Edward Bluemel, Martin Freeman, Helena Bonham-Carter.
3 episodes, rated TV-14. Watch the trailer below.
England, 1925. Lady Eileen Brent, better known as Bundle (Mia McKenna-Bruce, Persuasion), has just secured the promise of an engagement from her beloved Gerry (Corey Mylchreest, My Oxford Year) during a weekend house party at Chimneys, her family’s estate. Gerry’s friends from the Foreign Office, knowing his penchant for sleeping in, decide to play a harmless prank and place a series of eight alarm clocks around his room. But the next morning Gerry is dead, and seven of the eight clocks have been moved to sit neatly on the mantle.
Bundle tries to wrap her head around his death, which the bumbling detective on call deems a suicide, but the discovery of a strange letter naming “Seven Dials” sets off her investigative instincts. When another young man from the Foreign Office is killed, Bundle knows she must figure out what’s going on.
With the help of her friend Jimmy Thesiger (Edward Bluemel, My Lady Jane), she doggedly pursues leads and interviews witnesses, much to the consternation of Superintendent Battle (Martin Freeman, Sherlock). Bundle’s adventures take her into the seedy underbelly of London’s 1920s nightclubs, the fading glamor of crumbling country estates, and high-stakes political gatherings meant to prevent Europe from falling into a second world war. Along the way, Bundle discovers that unraveling the mystery of the Seven Dials may put her, and everything she holds dear, into terrible danger.
This limited three-episode series, adapted from Agatha Christie’s 1929 novel by creator Chris Chibnall, borrows the lighthearted atmosphere and basic premise of Christie’s original book while tweaking plot twists and deepening the political and historical themes. This is so much for the better: Christie’s story is a fun but ultimately frothy confection, while the “Seven Dials” screen version provides the context for an entertaining and poignant adventure.
In the original story, Bundle is only tangentially affected by the initial deaths, and she decides to investigate in the manner of some of Christie’s other plucky young heroines: she’s on the scene, so she might as well go digging. Here, Bundle is deeply motivated to figure out what happened to her almost-fiancé. McKenna-Bruce imbues her with a mixture of deep care for her loved ones and a sense of reckless adventure—if she doesn’t take risks to discover the truth, no one else will, either. She carries the story forward with her determination, and Chibnall allows her many more deductions than Christie gave her original heroine. Even Battle is impressed.
Bundle and her friends belong to the Lost Generation of young adults who came of age during the Great War, and behind the raucous parties and dancing linger deep scars. One reason Gerry’s friends are so willing to accept the detective’s initial conclusion of suicide is because of how sadly common it is: a war veteran, overcome by stress at work, succumbs to a sleeping draft and never wakes up.
Bundle’s resolve to uncover the truth is rooted in the pain of losing her older brother during the war, and this underpins many of her interactions with her bemused and scattered mother, Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech), who’s still mourning the loss of both her son and her husband (Iain Glen, The Windermere Children). These painful memories explain Bundle’s willingness to throw herself into the glamor and fun of weekend parties, and the show’s direction strikes a beautiful balance in depicting the laughter, the glittering gowns, and the forced merriment that lies behind it.
Similarly, Chibnall takes the vague MacGuffin of the original novel, around which the mystery of the Seven Dials revolved, and shapes it into a steel formula developed by the inventor Dr. Cyril Matip (Nyasha Hatendi, Swan Song) that promises to make another war nigh on unthinkable. We’re then rooting not only for Bundle to figure out what’s going on, but also for her to help Matip protect his formula against nefarious forces. The knowledge that a second war will break out just a decade ahead caps this plot point with a poignant dramatic irony.
Chibnall’s updates are sensitively handled and make the story not only more suitable for modern viewers of plot-driven mysteries, but more meaningful, too. Ably carried by McKenna-Bruce’s engaging performance, “Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials” is a delight for lovers of British mysteries and viewers ready to immerse themselves in another world.
Watch the trailer below.
For more Agatha Christie adaptations, see our following reviews of these movies and series:
“Agatha and the Truth of Murder”
“Murder on the Orient Express”
and don’t miss
“Agatha Christie: Lucy Worsley on the Mystery Queen“
Abby Murphy is the author of two young adult historical/historical fantasy novels, and is currently working on a dual-timeline historical novel about the Greenwich Village folk music revival. A member of SCBWI and The Historical Novel Society, she is represented by Laura Crockett of Triada US Literary Agency. Visit Writing in the Kitchen Sink, Abby’s Substack filled with her musings about books and the writing life.
If you enjoyed this post, see more of our Agatha Christie period drama reviews, including Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero (2025), and Agatha Christie’s Murder is Easy (2023). You’ll also like Movie vs. Book: Crooked House and our list of Best British TV Period Mystery Adaptations Based on Books.
