Welcome to all about Agatha, the podcast dedicated to reading and ranking every single mystery

novel written by the Queen of Crime, Dame Agatha Christie.

I am Kemper Donovan, and in this episode I am going to be speaking all about the plays

of Agatha Christie, this is another overview episode, but first I have quite frankly a ton

of housekeeping to get through. I suspect this episode is going to be equal parts housekeeping

and about the plays of Agatha Christie. I have so much material to cover here up front,

and that is thanks to all of you, dear listeners, who have written into me about all sorts of things

with such interesting observations and points about various aspects of the work of Agatha Christie,

and I very much want to share all of that with you. So let's dive right in to our housekeeping segment

here. Since I have so much to cover, I am actually going to start with those comments that have

to do with the oldest episodes of the podcast and then work forward in chronological order. So

I am starting with a comment, a very small but interesting comment concerning cards on the table,

early-ish novel of Agatha Christie's, a favorite of mine, a favorite of Catherine Brobex,

and a favorite of many of yours. So our main victim in that story, who we are introduced to on

page one, Mr. Shaitana, is a rather interesting fellow, and Catherine and I spent a while talking

about his depiction when we covered cards on the table. But one of you mentioned something that

had never occurred to me, and here is what this lovely listener wrote. Regarding Mr. Shaitana

in cards on the table, in Arabic, his name translates as devil in keeping with the mefistophilist

references. In fact, the word for devil is in the unusual feminine form here. Shaitana is the male

form. Shaitana is the female form. So it definitely feeds into the somewhat emasculated portrayal of

this character. Indeed it does, and I wish I had made that connection myself, but that's so

interesting and I think must have been very intentional on Agatha Christie's part. Not that she

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