Firstly let’s be clear about what the new Orient Express actually is.

The Venice Simplon‑Orient‑Express (VSOE) has been running luxury rail journeys in Europe, using 1920s/30s carriages. But this will be the first time the ‘OG’ Orient Express has run for a very long time. I’m talking about the original Orient Express service (Paris to Istanbul, etc) in its historic form. But all that is about to change. And I am planning to sell at least half my belongings, some of my family, and quite possibly a kidney to ride this beautiful train, on this beautiful route. It’s absolutely the top of my bucket list.

The Orient Express is back – and with some considerable pizzazz. The new train uses 17 original 1920s and 30s carriages that have been tracked down, rescued, and restored to their former splendour.

Rather than a standard rail timetable, it will offer a luxury travel experience, designed for discerning travellers who want to relive the romance and elegance of the golden age of train travel.

Restored Art Deco carriages, exquisite craftsmanship, and that nostalgic and beautiful sense of luxury you’d expect from the Orient Express means this is going to be one of the most elegant travel experiences of our time.

A legend reborn

The Orient Express will return to the rails, rekindling the glamour and grace of early 20th-century travel. Unveiled at the 1925–2025: A Century of Art Deco exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the train design represents a bridge between past and present. A celebration of timeless history and contemporary luxury.

The new design

The revival has been led by architect Maxime d’Angeac, known for restoring icons such as Maison Guerlain in Paris. His vision captures the romance of the original carriages while re-imagining them for a new generation.

Each carriage pays tribute to Art Deco masters Ruhlmann, Dunand, and Lalique, blending their influences with 21st-century materials, lighting and technology.

D’Angeac is a man with a passion for literature, and a collector of old books, with his interests very much extending into travel novels. In his library, you can read stories by Paul Morand, Henry Miller and Ernest Hemingway. You’ll also find Wagon-Lit by Joseph Kessel, Prose on the Trans-Siberian Railway by the poet Blaise Cendrars, and (most importantly as far as I’m concerned), a collection of Agatha Christie novels. He is clearly the right man for the job.

Craftsmanship and detail

More than thirty specialist artisans have been involved. Glassmakers, cabinetmakers, embroiderers and upholsterers… all working together to create a new standard of elegance.

The interiors feature restored Morrison & Nelson marquetry, original Lalique glass panels, and rich fabrics woven in French ateliers. The result is unmistakably Orient Express: refined, indulgent, and beautifully made.

A remarkable rediscovery

The rebirth of the train began with a detective story. Historian Arthur Mettetal spent years tracing the whereabouts of the missing Orient Express carriages, thought to have disappeared decades ago. Using Google Maps and 3D satellite images, he located 17 original 1920s cars abandoned on the Poland–Belarus border.

They were transported back to France, where renowned workshops – including Rinck, Ateliers Jouffre, and the Tapestry Manufacture of Burgundy – undertook a meticulous restoration.

Back on track

From mid-2026, travellers will once again be able to board the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express.

The relaunch forms part of a broader revival under Accor, which acquired the Orient Express brand in 2022. Alongside the new train, the group is developing an exclusive collection of hotels and experiences. La Dolce Vita Orient Express is already in service; a new luxury train experience in Italy, launched in 2025, offering one to three nights through Italy. Think Rome, Venice, Sicily, with deluxe cabins and suites, gourmet cuisine, and Italian design rooted in the 1960s and 70s.

Orient Express Venice opens in April 2026; and the Corinthian sailing yacht will debut later that summer.

The enduring appeal of the world’s most famous train

A century after it first captured the world’s imagination, the Orient Express remains a symbol of adventure, nostalgia, and sophistication. Its return offers something increasingly rare – the chance to slow down, settle into a beautifully crafted carriage, and watch the world unfold beyond the window in true style.

If I have to kill someone to bag a ride on this beautiful train, I will. And then of course it will be, ahem, murder…

More about the Nostalgie-Istanbul-Orient-Express

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post The new Orient Express: return to the golden age of travel appeared first on Silver Magazine.

Continuing our series, we meet another exceptional novelist, Sophie Hannah, who reflects on a writing career in which she cannot be pigeonholed.

How would you describe yourself?

I am excessively optimistic, to a Panglossian degree – often almost to the point of delusion – but this is an approach I very much choose on purpose, because I firmly believe that it’s the best way to be, from the point view of having the best life experience – and as a way to maximise the chances of everything going as well as it possibly can!

Where is your perfect place for writing?

The ideal writing spot for me is at home, with a block of five guaranteed interruption-free hours and nobody else in the house, preferably late morning to mid-afternoon. But this literally never happens, so I have to make do with anywhere, any time and under any conditions! The place is definitely less important than the solitude and lack of interruptions.

Do you write by hand or go straight to the keyboard?

The planning stage is always handwritten in a beautiful notebook, and the actual writing of the book happens on my laptop. I absolutely hate sitting at a desk, though. It feels too much like work and makes me shudder, so I sit in an armchair with my feet up on a footstool and my laptop is balanced on a cushion on my knee.

Read more: Meet the queen of ‘domestic noir’, Julia Crouch

Tell us about how you work across different genres

I’m not one for staying in my lane and have branched out into self-help, writing three books in that genre. I wrote the latest, The Double Best Method, after I realised that I had invented the world’s greatest decision-making tool. Yes, really… If you disagree, email me via my website and tell me why! Anyone who struggles to make wise choices, who second guesses their decisions, or beats themselves up when things go wrong, needs my foolproof method in their life.

Sounds like something we could all use. What other lanes do you like to venture into?

I’ve written a murder mystery musical that started life as a school play and is just about to come out as a movie called The Mystery of Mr. E. It premieres in a London cinema on 25 November and will be available to stream on Amazon Prime from that day too. It’s a feel-good, family-friendly musical with catchy songs and a baffling mystery. Twin brothers John and George Danes call themselves The Generalists and they do all kinds of bizarre jobs for all sorts of peculiar people. One day, they get a visit from a mysterious stranger, who says no more than, ‘I am the murderer’ before disappearing. John and George have to find out who this odd man is, and what murder he is referring to. Before they know it, a murder is committed right under their nose. But the strange man who identified himself as the murderer is nowhere to be found…

How do you inspire yourself when you’re running on empty?

I think my strategies are just the standard things that many people do to recharge – rest, holidays, swimming, meditating – nothing out of the ordinary, but all highly effective.

How do you beat the distractions and prevarications that can prevent you from getting your writing done?

I really struggle with this. I can only force myself to work when my self-criticism gets so loud that it’s more painful to avoid writing than it is to write. Luckily, though, I also get obsessed with any story idea that I really love, so once I start work on it, I’m driven to carry on and see it through because I’m determined to make it real.

Do you invent any of your characters or are they based on real people?

I invent most of them! Though obviously they share traits with people I know or have encountered. I think that’s inevitable.

Have any friends or enemies recognised themselves when you’ve written them into a novel?

Yes, but only when the characters could not be more different from them if they tried. Once someone – a bit of a rotter – threatened to sue me because he thought I’d based a character on him. The fictional character was unlike him in every possible way, apart from being a bit of a rotter. Evidently, that was the part he recognised!

Do you eat and drink when you write?

I drink constant, endless cups of tea with milk. Usually Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong.

Do you play music as you work or are you desperate for absolute silence and solitude?

Absolute silence and solitude all the way to the last page.

Are there any absolute hard and fast rules you set yourself about your stories or characters?

My main aim is to grip the reader, which I always try to do with an impossible hook; something that presents a mystery that feels completely unsolvable, even unguessable. I love to create flawed and complex characters, because anything else just isn’t true to life. My characters have to be psychologically interesting. And I’m not interested in transferrable, generic motives such as the killer doing it for the money. I want my motives to be specific to that particular killer, in those particular circumstances, and to have arisen from their unique psyche.

Will the internet and people’s shortened attention spans ever mean the end of the novel?

No, I don’t think so. The more instant online culture becomes, the more it’s going to wear us down and that’ll lead to some people, at least, remembering the joy and the benefits of immersion in something longer and more satisfying. Novels will always have a place in the world and many people will always love and want them.

What do you wish you’d known before starting this novel-writing malarkey?

That one day I was going to be successful. If I could have seen the future, I would have been far less gutted about each of the early fail results I stacked up when I first started trying to get published. I’d have been able to be happy in the moment, no matter what, because I’d have known I was going to achieve my goals. Although the good news for writers just starting out is that you can and should approach the process as though success is guaranteed – it’ll make your dreams much more likely to come true and ensure a contented writing life.

Do you have any advice for new writers?

I found I had so much advice to offer that I became a Master Certified life coach and set up Dream Author Coaching, my online coaching programme that has helped hundreds of writers so far. And it’s not just for new writers. I’ve helped lots of hugely successful and bestselling authors who were suffering from the negative emotional and psychological issues that seem to – but certainly don’t need to – come with the territory. The programme is for anyone who loves writing and who wants to feel happy and energised about their dreams, rather than anxious, frustrated or stressed. Over the four years that I’ve been teaching and coaching, we’ve had some quite staggeringly brilliant results – writers watching their dreams come true in front of their eyes!

• Find out more about Sophie’s coaching programme: dreamauthorcoaching.com. To buy her books and find out more about her work: https://sophiehannah.com/
• National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place every November. It began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days.

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post Meet the novelist: Sophie Hannah on genre-hopping, and the sound of silence appeared first on Silver Magazine.

Kenneth Branagh – who plays the wily Hercule Poirot – admits lockdown has given him clarity and a vision for the future that he didn’t perhaps expect.

In an industry where so many of the major players have sat back and waited for lockdown inertia to pass, Branagh is a director, producer, and actor who takes a rather different view.

Making the most of a situation

“Opportunities are made out of unfortunate events,” he begins. “Covid was horrendous, and deeply upsetting, for all of us. But I, like many others, was able to take away from it a sense of calm. It gave me time, offered a reset of a few ideas and, I hope, has helped me come back a letter person.”

On the evidence of Death on the Nile, 61-year-old Branagh has undoubtedly come back a better producer and actor. Although the point is lost slightly when you realise the bulk of this movie was completed pre-lockdown. It was only the closing of cinemas worldwide that meant the big-budget production – estimated to be in the region of £90million – sat in the can for so long.

That we’re now being treated to an impeccable piece of cinema, straight from the pen of Agatha Christie, will be a relief to Branagh, even though this project is one of four of his finding an audience this year.

There’s the collosal success that is Belfast, a voyage into his own mind as a boy growing up in Northern Ireland; TV series This Sceptred Isle, in which he plays Boris Johnson; and a voiceover role in animated adventure Fireheart.

Scene from Death on the Nile

Bringing personality to the role

Where Death on the Nile succeeds is in evading the various traps that are laid when retelling a story many people know. And in bringing something new to a famous character, as did John Malkovich.

“You must believe you can do something different and better or, without sounding arrogant, don’t bother,” fires Branagh, whose countless other films include Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Valkyrie, Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and Murder on the Orient Express.

There is no point me being the same Hercule Poirot that, say, David Suchet, would be. You have to be your own character

“And from a personal perspective, playing Hercule Poirot himself, I knew there was a huge amount of scrutiny coming my way.

“I had to undertake lots of research; lots of looking at how other actors have gone about the character. But also lots of searching and yearning for originality.

“There is no point me being the same Hercule Poirot that, say, David Suchet, would be. You have to be your own character. You have to really study Agatha Christie’s words and accept that the interpretation we have seen on our screens before is only one interpretation. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bloody good one, but if all you felt you were going to do was replicate what someone else had done on screen, then you really should just go home and put a film on.”

The pressure to succeed

With such a colossal budget, there was added pressure to make the film not just an artistic success, but a commercial one. Although with a cast boasting the likes of Gal Gadot, Russell Brand, Letitia Wright, Dawn French and the somewhat controversial Armie Hammer, the box office was buzzing in its opening weekend.

“I think for us … it’s such an iconic story, and arguably one that has been confined to stage or screen. Barring one previous film adaptation from 1978 which, by the way, won an Oscar and a BAFTA.

“We’re not saying this hasn’t been done properly in the past. Yet what that extra finance gives you is detail and delivery. It’s the fine details that really begin to shine when you have a bigger budget to play with. The luxury of doing something really good. And knowing you have the time to go back and take another look if it hasn’t quite come through the way you had expected. It’s quality control.”

Quality is certainly a buzzword Branagh. He’s led many early artistic endeavours by either directing or starring in film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Those include Henry V – for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Director – Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Hamlet and As You Like It. And this is still true despite how, within a generation, technology has taken forward the possibilities of film and TV into whole new realms.

Branagh in Death on the Nile

Romanticising the past

“I think that really hit home with Death on the Nile,” says Branagh. “That era possessed such an arty, seductive innocence. And it’s frightening to think how, in such a short space of time, the whole world has changed.

“I do understand when people become philosophical or maudlin about this romantic past age that clearly we are never going to get back.

“What I would say to that is yes, it was a romantic time. But we have substituted that for a new era of entertainment and connectivity and, actually, knowledge.”

He continues: “Life is also incredibly more convenient now. In the past to do the most basic things without technology could actually be profoundly difficult. people were largely uncontactable.

“People could lose their lives on the Nile… and almost get away with it!”

Richard Aldhous

The post Kenneth Branagh on his Hercule Poirot appeared first on Silver Magazine.

As a self-confessed Agatha Christie nut I’m always excited when new versions hit the screen. My long-suffering boyfriend has had to sit through them all; the Marples – Margaret Rutherford, Joan Hickson, Geraldine McEwan, Angela Lansbury and most recently the lovely Julia McKenzie (hard to pick a favourite but possibly McKewan) – and the Poirots. Even the Tommys and Tuppences, although I’m less bothered by them. He just loves a Sunday afternoon Christie session (he doesn’t really).

It’s when you meet the Poirot interpretations that you really find some diversity – for a character so clearly written. Described the first time by Hastings, Poirot is/was ‘…hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side…The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound.”

Poirot takes great pride in his appearance, from his immaculately groomed BLACK MOUSTACHE to his patent leather shoes. And yet over the years we have had a very scruffy, very grey Ustinov, a frankly insane Albert Finney, BRANAGH who is a ginger swot, and then of course, the divine and rather perfect David Suchet who for my money is the only one that comes close.

I am really very excited about the new Poirot to be aired over the Christmas season. Regardless of the facial hair question (IT’S IN THE BOOK DAMMIT!!)

And now John Malkovich. Who brings with him to the classic ABC Murders tale a grey goatee. I’m speechless. But I will guard my tongue until I have seen it. Or try to.

Leaving the Case of the Missing Black Moustache aside for a moment, I am really very excited about the new Poirot to be aired over the Christmas season. Regardless of the facial hair question (IT’S IN THE BOOK DAMMIT!!) you just know Malkovich is going to bring some zing to the role. I do love him so I’ll give him a chance. There’s some corking support in the cast too and I’m looking forward to seeing Grint do a grownup thing. Tara Fitzgerald was rather born to be in Agatha Christie productions I think, and has seen a few. There is plenty of talent here but the full line up seems embargoed until the 18th so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Directed again by Sarah Phelps – the Christie Estate is very picky about who gets to muck about with her books – I’ve got mixed expectations. Her bash at And Then There Were None was awesome, I thought. Dark and brooding and tense and really brilliant. Then there was Witness for the Prosecution which was a bit curate’s egg but largely a mangled sort of omelette.

The year is 1933 and a killer stalks Britain, known only as ‘ABC’, striking in a methodical pattern and leaving a copy of the ABC railway guide at the scene of each of murder. As Poirot attempts to investigate, he is thwarted on every front; by a police force that no longer trusts him, a public that no longer adores him, and an enemy determined to outsmart him.

It is the 1930s; a divided country where suspicion and hatred are on the rise, and the gap between wealth and poverty is great and growing greater. In the midst of this we find Hercule Poirot and his little grey cells. Poirot has aged and the world has changed around him. England; tolerant, welcoming England, squeezed by Depression, by the dark news from Germany, isn’t as tolerant and welcoming. It’s a dark interpretation of what is already a moody storyline.

I have high hopes for ABC anyway, moustaches notwithstanding, so I’ll be there 100%, tucked up on the sofa with a massive Baileys and a really excited boyfriend who would far rather be using his little grey cells doing anything but watching yet another Poirot with me. Bon chance my friends.

Episode 1 of The ABC Murders will air on BBC One on Boxing Day – 26 December – at 9pm

Sam Harrington-Lowe

Sam is Silver’s founder and editor-in-chief. She’s largely responsible for organising all the things, but still finds time to do the odd bit of writing. Not enough though. Send help.

The post Poirot returns for new BBC drama The ABC Murders this Christmas appeared first on Silver Magazine.