Dr Mark Aldridge (he/him)

Mark is an Agatha Christie historian and speaker. His books include Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness (HarperCollins, 2024), Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World (HarperCollins, 2020) and Agatha Christie on Screen (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). 

Mark regularly speaks at Agatha Christie events, including at the International Agatha Christie Festival, which takes place in Torquay each year, and the Agatha Christie Festival Internacional, held in Puerto de la Cruz (Tenerife) every other year. He grew up in South Devon, not far from Agatha Christie's beloved Torquay.

Mark is Associate Professor of Screen Histories at Solent University, Southampton. Beyond Agatha Christie, his main research interests concern British television history and drama. His publications on this topic include T is for Television: The Small Screen Adventures of Russell T Davies (Reynolds & Hearn, 2008), written with Andy Murray (not that one).

Gray is a writer, podcaster and speaker. As a playwright, he has appeared on long- and shortlists for the Old Vic New Voices 12, the Papatango Prize, the Theatre 503 International Playwriting Prize, BOLD Playwrights, the Oxford Playhouse Playmaker, and the Traverse Theatre Breakthrough scheme. His plays have received rehearsed readings at the the Southwark Playhouse, the Old Red Lion and The Place, Bedford. His stageplay Sugar is  in development as a TV sitcom, and he contributed a story for the Ladybird Stories for Pride audio collection for children (2024). 

In 2022 he presented a paper titled “Famous Last Words: Agatha Christie’s Curtain and Sleeping Murder” at the Golden Age of Crime Conference at Bournemouth University, where he first met co-host Mark. Gray has been fascinated by Agatha Christie since childhood and grew up a mere eight miles from her former home in Wallingford. His day job is making and casting audiobooks for Penguin.