Ngaio Marsh - Crime Queen

She says the theatre was her drug, and in fact she wrote in order to support her habit.

– Theatre director Elric Hooper on her friend and mentor Ngaio Marsh

Oh hello! How nice to meet you because I've been typing you for years...

– Ngaio Marsh's former assistant Rosemary Greene finally 'meets' Detective Inspective Roderick Alleyn (Peter Elliott)

We need to go back to those times when the bond between New Zealand and England was very strong. The Marshs were English people; Christchurch was an English city. They kept saying to themselves, 'We're not Englishmen. We've got to somehow become New Zealanders.' How do you become a New Zealander? And somebody hit on the right idea, 'Look, we'll give our children Māori names'. The problem was solved, and again they just went back to becoming Englishmen.

– Ngaio Marsh's cousin John Dacres-Mannings on the origin of her name

A lot of her novels feature the theatre in some shape or form, and she obviously has ones that are set almost exclusively in the theatre — Vintage Murder, Opening Night, Death at the Dolphin, Light Thickens. I mean they're imbued with the theatre. But a lot of her other novels, they may not feature the traditional theatre but they do feature a performance of some sort . . . she never really strayed very far from the theatre in some shape or form.

– Irish author John Curran on Ngaio Marsh's connection to all things theatrical, early in this documentary

Scotland Yard used to say that of all the great writers, women writers really of the period, she was the one who got her murders and her poisons and her means of death absolutely right.

– Ngaio Marsh's friend Jonathan Elsom on Marsh's reputation for accuracy in her novels

You get to the 1950s and she's absolutely at the top of her game and everybody read her, both in the UK and internationally.

– HarperCollins publisher David Brawn on Ngaio Marsh's success in the 1950s

If a book was selling well I can remember saying, 'Oh what bad luck!'. I'd say, 'I'm sorry to hear that' because it meant tax everywhere, and she'd say, 'This book is apparently going like a rocket'.

– One of Ngaio Marsh's friends on the problems accompanying success

I thought she was terribly beautiful with her silver white hair, and she always had lipstick on and she always looked so elegant and she had that wonderful voice.

– Broadcaster Charlotte Wilson remembers Christmas celebrations at Ngaio Marsh's home

The Chief Inspector, I believe, is her ideal husband. She saw glimpses of him in, I think, Tahu Rhodes and even later Lord Ballantrae, Sir Bernard Fergusson. These distinguished men with a Oxbridge, and often as I say a military or a service background.

– Marton Cottage Curator Bruce Harding on Ngaio Marsh's character Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn

When Marsh died in 1982, her death made headlines around the world. An obituary published in the New York Times quoted critic Newgate Callendar as saying: 'She writes better than Agatha Christie ever did: She is more civilised, knows something of the arts, and her characterisations have much more life than Christie's cardboard figures ever did.'

– Profile of Ngaio Marsh, The NZ Herald, 17 September 2018