The great dame inspires bright lights of the theater and literature

A still photo of the play Murder on Air. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Christie was particularly significant to the couple because their relationship started after they played a married couple in a drama adapted from The Mousetrap when they studied at university.

Lin once said in an interview that "the most interesting part of a crime drama is that everyone breathes together. Audiences watch everything so carefully. Actors have to be alert."

Like many Chinese audiences, Tong got to know Christie and her works by watching two movies adapted from detective novels by Christie that were among the earliest imported Western movies broadcast in China in the 1990s, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile.

Of all Christie's works, including her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, Tong's favorite is Christie's Witness for the Prosecution.

"One of the main reasons why she is among the best-selling writers of all time is that murder and suspense are methods of telling a good story and portraying characters. With a female sensitivity, she tells a different and compelling crime story."

In 2010, to mark the 125th anniversary of Christie's birth, the writer's only grandson, Mathew Prichard, was invited to Shanghai by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and watched Mousetrap Drama Studio's Chinese production of And Then There Were None.

Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre says Agatha Christie Ltd, which Prichard chairs and which has managed Christie's literary and media rights globally since 1955, has plans to work with Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and Mousetrap Drama Studio to turn more of Christie's works into Chinese dramas.

"Prichard agreed to work with us because he saw how popular his grandmother's works are with Chinese audiences," Tong says. "Each of our productions takes around one and a half years because we want to make each work a classic, not just paying tribute to Christie but also telling a high-quality crime story to Chinese audiences."

In 2014 they presented a new translation of Christie's play Murder on Air, which brought together Tong Zirong and Liu Guangning and other acclaimed voice actors in Shanghai.