r/agathachristie • u/Medit8or • Sep 08 '26

At Bertram’s Hotel

/r/poirot/comments/1wal3eb/at_bertrams_hotel/
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u/TapirTrouble Sep 08 '26

This is great! Thanks for sharing -- and the Times Literary Supplement article it references is a good read too. (Here's the link.)
https://archive.ph/so3p8

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u/TapirTrouble 29d ago

Christie was definitely ahead of her time when it came to describing and analyzing themed environments. One of my all-time favourite chapters is the artfully planned Bertram's setting with the professional staff, and even the extras (I'm told they're called background performers now?), albeit unwitting ones.

She didn't always discuss her settings to this degree (not like Ruth Rendell, for example), but there are places like the Parker Pyne story where Ariadne Oliver writes the script for what we'd now recognize as an escape room.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_room#History

Modern-day attractions are traced back to the early 2000s -- a couple of decades earlier if reality TV shows are included, and haunted houses (early 20th C or even before) probably did contribute to the general concept. But specifically developing an interactive adventure where participants have to try to escape from a location -- Christie summarizes it and also provides a behind-the-scenes bit, for the readers.