@article{ART003330894},
author={Seunghyun Hwang},
title={Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution},
journal={Journal of Modern English Drama},
issn={1226-3397},
year={2026},
volume={39},
number={1},
pages={259-280}
TY - JOUR
AU - Seunghyun Hwang
TI - Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution
JO - Journal of Modern English Drama
PY - 2026
VL - 39
IS - 1
PB - 한국현대영미드라마학회
SP - 259
EP - 280
SN - 1226-3397
AB - This article analyzes Sarah Phelps’ 2016 BBC adaptation, of Agatha Christie’s short story “Witness for the Prosecution,” as a narrative of unequal prosperity in postwar British society. Phelps applies a next-level adaptation approach to Christie’s compact courtroom plot of a formal exercise in testimony and reversal, which briefly refers to class, foreignness, and postwar uncertainty. Centering on two couples—Leonard Vole and Romaine Heilger, and John and Alice Mayhew—the article argues that the miniseries stages wartime victimhood, as both relational and structural rather than purely individual. Leonard and Romaine embody precarious survival under economic scarcity foreignness and xenophobic suspicion, while John and Alice dramatize marriage after patriotic sacrifice, bereavement, and masculine guilt. Examining these figures in terms of gender, generation, class, and the emotional ghosts of trauma and loss, the research analyzes that Phelps tranforms Christie’s legal plot into a critique that speaks directly to contemporary audiences through its attention to inequality, patriarchal fragility, nationalism, and nostalgic political longing.
KW - Agatha Christie;Sarah Phelps;adaptation;postwar Britain;war trauma
DO -
UR -
ER -
Seunghyun Hwang. (2026). Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution. Journal of Modern English Drama, 39(1), 259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang. 2026, "Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution", Journal of Modern English Drama, vol.39, no.1 pp.259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang "Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution" Journal of Modern English Drama 39.1 pp.259-280 (2026) : 259.
Seunghyun Hwang. Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution. 2026; 39(1), 259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang. "Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution" Journal of Modern English Drama 39, no.1 (2026) : 259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang. Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution. Journal of Modern English Drama, 39(1), 259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang. Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution. Journal of Modern English Drama. 2026; 39(1) 259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang. Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution. 2026; 39(1), 259-280.
Seunghyun Hwang. "Creative Reimagining Victims of War and Social Change: Sarah Phelps’ The Witness for the Prosecution" Journal of Modern English Drama 39, no.1 (2026) : 259-280.
