'The ABC Murders' writer Sarah Phelps is receiving abuse on Twitter over her BBC adaptation

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from The ABC Murders

The writer of the BBC’s adaptation of The ABC Murders is being subjected to vitriolic abuse online over changes she made to the story.

Sarah Phelps is the celebrated writer behind the broadcaster’s previous Agatha Christie adaptations – Ordeal by Innocence, And Then There Were None and The Witness for the Prosecution – but is being trolled on Twitter for changing the backstory of Hercule Poirot and adding an anti-immigration theme to the story.

Since the show came to a climactic end, the writer has responded to several Christie purists who have delivered rather scathing attacks on the social media platform.

Some people have spoken out in defence of Phelps and suggested that if you don’t like a person’s work, and want to be aggressively mean about it, then maybe don’t tag the creator on social media.

“Hello, general note of polite Twitter decorum – if you don’t like a TV show/film/book/album etc, PLEASE DON’T @ the creator and tell them,” tweeted TV historian Greg Jenner.

“It’s incredibly aggressive, hurtful, selfish and destructive. If we want to know what people think, we will search for it ourselves. Thanks!”

Though it seems that Phelps is taking this in her stride as she posted about how much Agatha Christie would enjoy the debate her work is stirring up.

“Do you know who would be absolutely loving this? Agatha,” she tweeted. “It’s amazing, really, that the character to fire the nation up should be Hercule. Job done. I’m proud.”

The next Christie adaptation is said to be Death Comes as the End, the only novel of the British author’s not to be set in the 20th Century.

The story is set in Ancient Egypt, circa 2000 BC, and centres on a family whose lives are disturbed when the father, Imhotep, introduces a concubine, Nofret, who creates discord as the death toll rises.

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