Anjelica Huston to play ‘dignified’ aristocrat in Agatha Christie murder mystery

American actress Anjelica Huston will be part of the cast of a new adaption of an Agatha Christie murder mystery for the BBC.

The Hollywood star, 72, known for playing Morticia in The Addams Family films and as the Grand High Witch in The Witches, is also an Oscar winner, having won a best supporting actress gong for the black comedy Prizzi’s Honor.

She will take on the role of Camilla, Lady Tressilian in the three-part show Towards Zero.

Lady Tressilian has her nephew Nevile Strange, played by The Haunting Of Hill House actor Oliver Jackson-Cohen, come and stay at her coastal estate at Gull’s Point in 1936.

Nevile, a British tennis star, has divorced his wife Audrey (Ella Lily Hyland) and the pair visit the Dover location along with his new wife (Mimi Keene).

Huston said: “I have long been a fan of Agatha Christie and the murder-mystery genre and always love the opportunity to film in England.

“I am thrilled to be working with director Sam Yates and this wonderful cast, and excited to play the clever and dignified Camilla, Lady Tressilian.”

The series is adapted for screen by Bafta-nominated Rachel Bennette and directed by the Olivier Award-winning Sam Yates.

It will also star Motherland actress Jackie Clune, Call The Midwife’s Grace Doherty, Poldark actor Jack Farthing, The Wire star Clarke Peters, The Americans actor Matthew Rhys and Wicked Little Letters actress and Olivier winner Anjana Vasan.

James Prichard, executive producer for Agatha Christie Limited, said: “This is a very special production. Rachel has done an extraordinary job on making my great-grandmother’s story even more dramatic, intense and troubling.

“Add in a cast of this calibre and viewers are in for a real treat.”

The BBC’s announcement also teased that “tensions are running high” before a troubled detective is called upon to solve a murder as characters such as a “long-suffering lady’s companion, a mysterious gentleman’s valet, an exiled cousin with a grudge, a venerable family lawyer, an inquisitive orphan and a French con man” contribute to the plot.

Sheena Bucktowonsing and Damien Timmer, executive producers for Mammoth Screen, said: “We are privileged to be working with Hollywood legend Anjelica Huston and a particularly stellar cast on one of Agatha Christie’s most intriguing novels – the sun-drenched Towards Zero.

“It’s a tale of tennis, an incendiary love triangle, the Devon coastline and murder.”

Towards Zero is filming around Bristol and on the Devon coast.

The series will air on BBC iPlayer and BBC One.