ABSTRACT
Agatha Christie’s 1937 Akhnaton is not one of her better-known works. It is the only one of her sixteen plays set in antiquity. Usually, her plays were somewhat contemporary to the times in which she wrote. This play is so forgotten or neglected that it was not published until 1973 and was not produced on stage until 1979. This chapter reviews the literature on this play, examines its relationship to the 1937 Novel Death on the Nile, analyzes the changes that Christie made to the historical record regarding this pharaoh, teases out the influence that her Egyptologist acquaintances had on the play, and traces current productions and interpretations of this Egyptian play. Particular focus is placed on the character of the pharaoh and how he seems to take on the persona and regalia of a very modern British king.
