Preview: The Mirror Crack'd. at Newcastle People's Theatre

The Mirror Crack'd.

Newcastle People's Theatre 

Tuesday 20 - Saturday 24 January 2026

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple returns to the stage at the People's Theatre this January in a new adaptation of The Mirror Crack'd.

Originally published in 1962 as The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, the novel was Christie's eighth Miss Marple mystery. The title draws from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott," in which the lady sees a curse fulfilled through her mirror. Christie was 72 when she wrote the book, which many consider among her finest late-period works. The story brings Hollywood glamour to the quiet village of St Mary Mead when an American film star takes up residence, only for a local woman to be fatally poisoned at a reception party.

This production uses Rachel Wagstaff's recent stage adaptation, which condenses Christie's intricate plotting for the theatre while preserving the novel's exploration of past tragedies and their consequences. The mystery centres on Miss Marple's observation of a peculiar expression on the film star's face—a frozen look that provides the key to understanding a death that appears to be a case of mistaken identity.

Christie, who died in 1976, wrote 66 detective novels and created two of crime fiction's most enduring characters: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. The elderly spinster sleuth, who first appeared in 1930's The Murder at the Vicarage, used her understanding of human nature and village life to solve crimes that baffled professional investigators.

The People's Theatre production runs from Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 January 2026 at their Stephenson Road venue in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Tickets

Tickets are available from the People's Theatre Box Office on 0191 265 5020 (option 2) and online at www.peoplestheatre.co.uk.