Agatha Christie’s first play, Black Coffee, premiered in 1930. Its first recorded performance took place on 8 December 1930 at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage, London.
Christie began writing the play in 1929 after becoming dissatisfied with the stage treatment of Hercule Poirot in Alibi and with film adaptations of some of her earlier work. Black Coffee gave her much more control over the detective’s presentation and launched a major second career as a playwright.
There is an intriguing historical wrinkle: Christie later recalled that the debut was at Hampstead’s Everyman Theatre, but no record of that staging survives. The documented opening was at the Embassy Theatre, where the initial run lasted until 20 December 1930. The play reopened at St Martin’s Theatre in April 1931 and later transferred to other London venues.
Black Coffee was not published until 1934. Its successful stage run also led to a 1931 film adaptation, now believed lost, and a novelisation by Charles Osborne published in 1998.