London-based Agatha Christie Limited (ACL) has been managing the literary and media rights to Agatha Christie's works since 1955, working with the best talents to widen the iconic crime novelist’s fan base around the world.

As explained hereunder by Agatha Christie’s great grandson James Prichard, ACL had the idea to merge the iconic English crime novelist's universe and characters with Scandinavia’s Nordic noir savoir-faire.

The first Scandinavian spin-off about the meta-character Sven Hjerson - fictional Finnish detective invented by Agatha Christie’s own fictional crime writer Ariadne Oliver - is a modern playful whodunnit starring Johan Rheborg as the titular character. Filming is underway in Åland (see separate story).

We spoke to James Prichard.

How did you get involved in the series Agatha Christie’s Sven Hjerson?
James Prichard: We came up with the original idea. Our creative director Basi Akpabio had the idea a while ago to do something around the character of Sven Hjerson. Our agent who handles Europe, got in a cab in Cannes with Josefine Tengblad [C More/TV4 head of drama]. In their casual conversation, this came up. Josefine and TV4 then brought in the production company B-RF, and since then, the three of us have been developing the series together. In the meantime other partners came on board. It all started five years ago! The best things take time, especially with TV.

Was it the opportunity to mix your great grandmother’s whodunnit recipe with Scandinavia’s own crime tradition that you found so appealing?
JP: There are a lot of things that made us come on board. Firstly, Sven Hjerson is Finnish, and that was an obvious link, although soft. As you say, there is a fantastic tradition of crime writing and crime TV drama in Scandinavia and that felt both natural and exciting.

We have been exploring TV all over the world for a while now, and we saw it as a new interesting way of doing that. In some way, it is tenuously an Agatha Christie project, but it feels like a proper Scandinavian project. This is what we try to do with our foreign language TV - let the local producers and TV executives impart their flavour, their culture on our work, so that it does feel like a proper local show. Not something imposed from the UK on them. It feels like their show, but it just has an Agatha Christie story, or character, or flavour, or whatever.

You must have been following closely the writing process, but what were the essential ingredients that you absolutely wanted to include to stay true to the Agatha Christie legacy?
JP: Normally, nearly everything we do is around an Agatha Christie story. This obviously isn’t and represented a challenge. I’ll be honest, I was nervous about it. One of the things I’ve learnt in life is that she [Agatha Christie] was amazing at telling stories and creating plots. This is a difficult thing to do, and the show needed to feel like an Agatha Christie mystery. But over the full series - and hopefully future series - you have a wider arc, where the two main characters Sven and Klara [his side-kick in the show] develop. You also have great episodic mysteries, with a murder and a solution. From the very first story we heard about and read, it all made sense and gave us comfort. I think that the fully fledged mysteries through the series are brilliant and worth the Agatha Christie name - even if she hasn’t written it. They have everything an Agatha Christie mystery should have.

Some people have mentioned that Sven Hjerson is an Hercule Poirot alter ego…
JP: He is not. He is an original character, based on Ariadne Oliver’s fictional detective, not an Hercule Poirot in disguise. As the story develops, people will realise that properly. He is a really interesting modern man-complex, difficult, different, and I believe people will love him and respect him.

The contemporary setting and themes are interesting new twists to Agatha Christie’s universe…
JP: Yes. I think this is what allows us to bring Agatha Christie’s world to the modern day. Klara [a TV producer in the series] is a big part of this and forms a great partnership with Sven. in some way, she is more important than him. Doing this show in a modern world will be fun.

How was the writing process?
JP: Our creative director Basi and I were both involved. When you collaborate with talented people, giving notes is a joy. It has been a collaborative effort with TV4, B-RF, the writers [Patrik Gyllström, Björn Paqualin, Jakob Beckman, Martin Luuk]. They properly felt bombarded at one point! But what we have ended up with is something incredibly clever and exciting.

Will you try to travel to Åland or Stockholm - despite the pandemic - to be on the set?
JP: I would love to go, although travelling is difficult. I’m very intrigued and have actually never been to Sweden. 

How familiar was Agatha Christie to Scandinavia? Had she travelled there?
JP: I’m not quite sure she did. She went to France a lot, Iraq, Syria, Iran among others. But Scandinavia wasn’t a destination she was familiar with, which is what interested me.

Are you a fan of the Nordic noir literary and TV drama tradition?
JP: I’ve watched The Bridge among others, and I’ve read quite a lot of fiction books in the crime genre. I love the Wallander book series for instance. But the series isn’t noir at all and this is why it’s so interesting. It tries to be nearer to the Agatha Christie spirit than the spirit of the Nordic noir.

Would you perhaps be interested in doing a UK version of this Swedish show based on the very British Agatha Christie universe?
JP: ...Or the Scandi version could become universal. I do hope that this will be one of those shows that does go wider and certainly comes back to the UK. The storylines are so impressive that I’m sure it will work with subtitles. I’m really optimistic about this show’s potential to travel internationally.