Which Murder on the Orient Express recording should you buy?
Three complete readings within forty minutes of each other in length, a full-cast Audible Original, a BBC radio play and a graded reader for English learners, all called the same thing — and the store gives you almost nothing to choose by.
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Agatha Christie · 6 Audible UK recordings compared
Short answer
David Suchet, if you want the novel read straight — he played Poirot for twenty-four years and it shows in the voice. Branagh and Dan Stevens are both complete and both good, so this is genuinely a matter of taste rather than quality. The Tom Conti version is an Audible Original with a full cast, which is a different experience, not a shorter one. The 2-hour BBC production is a radio adaptation. And the 3-hour Roger May listing is not the novel at all: it is a Collins graded reader for learners of English, sold under the plain title with only "B1" beneath it.
The recordings, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Suchet Our pick | 6 hrs 49 mins | Complete novel | The television Poirot reading the book. Released 2006 and still the one most listeners mean when they recommend "the Suchet". |
| Kenneth Branagh | 6 hrs 13 mins | Complete novel | Released 2017 alongside his film. Complete text despite being the shortest of the straight readings. |
| Dan Stevens | 6 hrs 37 mins | Complete novel | Released 2014. Well regarded, and the one people who dislike actorly Poirot voices tend to land on. |
| Tom Conti, with Jane Asher, Sophie Okonedo, Paterson Joseph, Art Malik, Eddie Marsan, Rula Lenska and Ruta Gedmintas | 5 hrs 47 mins | Audible Original, full cast | A cast production rather than a reading. Nearly full length, so this is not the corner-cutting option — just a different one. |
| Full cast with John Moffatt | 2 hrs 18 mins | BBC full-cast dramatisation | A radio play. Audible files it under a "Dramatised" product slug, but the listing title looks like all the others. |
| Roger May | 3 hrs 9 mins | Collins graded reader (B1) | NOT the novel: a Collins graded reader, the story rewritten to a controlled vocabulary for people learning English. The listing title, the web address and the product page heading are all just "Murder on the Orient Express"; the only sign is "B1" on the line beneath the title, so the description is the place to look. Audiobooks.com sells the same reading, at the same length, labelled B1 too. |
The recording we recommend is also on Audiobooks.com — the same David Suchet reading, listed at 6 hrs 49 mins when we checked on 11 September 2026. Their one-credit plan is listed at £7.99 a month before applicable taxes, and its credits expire after three months — the two models compared. We earn a commission on that link.
