Poirot and Me Read online

  Copyright © 2013 David Suchet and Geoffrey Wansell The right of David Suchet and Geoffrey Wansell to be identified as the Authors of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook in the UK by Headline Publishing Group in 2013

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  Epub conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire

  eISBN: 978 0 7553 6420 6

  Plate sections designed by Fiona Andreanelli All photographs © ITV plc, except where marked

  The Mysterious Affair at Styles reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1920 Agatha Christie. The Kidnapped Prime Minister reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1924 Agatha Christie. The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1924 Agatha Christie. Five Little Pigs reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1942 Agatha Christie. The Mystery of the Spanish Chest reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1960 Agatha Christie. Halloween Party reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1969 Agatha Christie. Agatha Christie: An Autobiography reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1977 Agatha Christie. Thirteen at Dinner reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 1933 Agatha Christie.

  Every effort has been made to fulfil requirements with regard to reproducing copyright material. The authors and publishers will be glad to rectify any omissions at the earliest opportunity.

  All jacket photographs © James Eckersley AGATHA CHRISTIE and POIROT mark are registered trade marks of Agatha Christie Limited which owns all rights relating to the Poirot character including in his name and image. All rights reserved.

  DISCLAIMER

  This is David Suchet’s personal account of his life playing Poirot and has been written by him independently (but with necessary permission) from ITV and the Agatha Christie estate.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Book

  About the Authors

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole

  Chapter 2 We must never, ever, laugh at him

  Chapter 3 I’m sorry, but I am not going to wear that suit

  Chapter 4 I’m afraid they’re going to be too tame, or too eccentric

  Chapter 5 It was like being hit over the head with a mallet

  Chapter 6 I wanted him to become even more human

  Chapter 7 I felt that I had become the custodian of Dame Agatha’s creation

  Chapter 8 Television’s unlikeliest heartthrob . . . the mango man

  Chapter 9 You have to make sure that nothing goes to your head

  Chapter 10 I could be saying goodbye to him, perhaps for a year, perhaps forever

  Chapter 11 A very long way indeed from Poirot

  Chapter 12 There hasn’t been any trouble, has there?

  Chapter 13 I had forgotten how hard he was to find in the first place

  Chapter 14 One of the turning points . . . a legacy to Dame Agatha

  Chapter 15 Easily the worst book I ever wrote

  Chapter 16 Why-why-why did I ever invent this detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature!

  Chapter 17 You’re not going to wear those horrible hairnet or moustache-net things, are you?

  Chapter 18 It is never finished with a murder. Jamais!

  Chapter 19 But most of all, to you all, au revoir and merci beaucoup!

  Poirot: Character Notes’ Facsimile

  Picture Section

  Index

  About the Book

  Hercule Poirot, with his distinctive moustache and fastidious ways, is one of Agatha Christie’s finest creations and one of the world’s best-loved detectives.

  Through his television performance in ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot, David Suchet has become inextricably linked with the ‘little Belgian’, a man whom he has grown to love dearly through an intimate relationship lasting more than twenty years.

  In Poirot and Me, he shares his many memories of creating this iconic television series and reflects on what the detective has meant to him over the years.

  About the Authors DAVID SUCHET is an award-winning English actor, best known around the world for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot. In a career that has spanned more than four decades David has appeared in many theatrical productions. He is also an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has won awards for his portrayals of the university teacher John in David Mamet’s Oleanna and the composer Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus in the theatre, as well as for playing two disgraced tycoons, Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now and Robert Maxwell, on television. A keen photographer, he is married with two adult children and lives in London. David was awarded the CBE in 2011 for services to drama. This is his first book.

  GEOFFREY WANSELL is the author of more than a dozen books, including biographies of the movie star Cary Grant, the billionaire Sir James Goldsmith and the playwright Sir Terence Rattigan. He was also the authorised biographer of the Gloucester serial killer Frederick West, appointed to the role by the Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court, and is now the official historian of the Garrick Club in London. As a journalist, he has worked for The Times, the Observer, the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail, among many other newspapers and magazines in Britain and around the world. He first met David Suchet when he appeared in the film When the Whales Came for Twentieth Century Fox, when Geoffrey was the executive producer, and the two have remained close friends.

  For my wife Sheila

  Acknowledgements

  Playing Hercule Poirot for a quarter of a century would not have been possible for me without the help of many, many people, all of whom I owe my most grateful thanks. The television executives, directors, producers, writers, production teams all helped to make it an unforgettable experience. To all the teams over all the shows, to the costume designers, costumiers, tailors, dressers, personal make-up artists, set designers and the art directors, who made the production values of Poirot so special, let me say at once, I could not have done it without you, thank you all so much.

  I must also thank all the extraordinary and talented actors and actresses who have appeared alongside me and supported me throughout the years, especially Hugh Fraser, Philip Jackson and Pauline Moran – the central members of the Poirot family at the very beginning and for so many episodes thereafter. I cannot thank them enough.

  But there are another special group whom I really must thank individually for their contribution to making the programmes with me. The first among those are the late Rosalind Hicks, Dame Agatha’s daughter, and her husband, the late Anthony Hicks, who believed that I was capable of bringing Poirot to life for an audience around the world, a view that was reinforced by their son Mathew Prichard. I could not have created and sustained Poirot without their help.

  Then there is Brian Eastman, who first approached me about playing the role in 1988 and produced the series through its formative years with the greatest skill and determina
tion. I owe a similar debt to Michelle Buck, Damien Timmer and Karen Thrussell, the executive producers who took over the series and saw it to its conclusion in 2013. Poirot would not have become the worldwide phenomenon that it has without them.

  My final word of thanks to the television executives, however, must go the Peter Fincham, the director of programmes at ITV, who promised me that all the Poirot stories would indeed be filmed, and he was true to his word. I cannot thank him enough.

  As for this book, there are a host of people who have contributed to it, not least my dear friend Geoffrey Wansell who help me to write it. Also Michael Alcock at the literary agency Johnson and Alcock, who believed in it and introduced me to the team at Headline, led by editor Emma Tait. There was also Siobhan Hooper, who designed the jacket, James Eckersley, who took the cover photographs, Holly Harris, Laura Esslemont in production, Juliana Foster, the indefatigable copy editor, and Fiona Andreanelli who designed the picture sections. Last, but by no means least, I also have to thank Samantha Eades for her publicity guidance and Jo Liddiard for her marketing skill.

  No one of them should be held accountable for my opinions, however, those are mine alone, but, most of all, I am grateful to the thousands of fans from around the world who have written to me over the years telling me how much Poirot has come to mean to them. Each and every one of their letters has warmed my heart, and I hope this book explains how much he meant to me as well.

  David Suchet, London, August 2013

  Prologue

  It is a damp, chill Friday morning in November and I am feeling old, very old; so old, indeed, that I am on the brink of death. I have lost two stone in weight, my face is the colour of aged parchment, and my hands are gnarled like human claws.

  I am about to breathe my last as Agatha Christie’s idiosyncratic Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who has been a part of my life as an actor for almost a quarter of a century. I have played him in no fewer than sixty-six television films, and I am about to bid him farewell.

  It is, quite simply, one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, even though I am, of course, only an actor playing a part. Poirot’s death is to take place on sound stage A at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, twenty miles or so north-west of London, at eleven o’clock in the morning on this November day, and I am in the middle of the great, echoing stage where Poirot is to meet his end in this, his last case Curtain.

  All around me are the crew of ninety with their huge lights and the swinging sound booms: the make-up and hair ladies, the director of photography, the two cameras and their operators, the man with the clapper board, and, of course, the talented young director Hettie Macdonald.

  Now in her late thirties, Hettie is one of Britain’s most delicate yet forceful directors, with the capacity to surprise her audience and charm her cast. She directed ‘Blink’, which has been called the ‘scariest ever’ episode of the British television series Doctor Who, in 2007, but she is not here to terrify anyone today: she is here to preside over the death of a fictional icon, a detective as famous as his counterpart Sherlock Holmes and who has brought every bit as much pleasure to millions around the world.

  That brings sadness to the air. There is none of the usual banter and laughter of a film unit in action. Our beloved Belgian is dying, and no one can really bear it. Everyone is caught up in the emotion of watching me – as Poirot – pass away in front of their eyes.

  It does not happen at once, however. There are two scenes to be filmed before we get to the denouement, and both of them feature just two actors – Poirot and his old and trusted colleague Captain Hastings, played by my dear friend Hugh Fraser.

  A loud bell echoes across the set to indicate that we are about to shoot. Hugh and I play out the melancholy scene, each knowing that we are nearing the end. Finally, my old friend walks quietly off the set and I sigh to myself.

  When the great bell rings to indicate the end of the scene, hardly anyone moves. There is barely a sound. Every person there knows that we are nearing the end of a television era, one of the longest-running series ever starring a single actor as the main character. Each man and woman working with me is supporting me in every way they can – but we all know there is no avoiding the truth.

  On the sound stage outside the set, my wife Sheila is sitting beside the sound man, watching the scene on the video playback. It is the first time she has come to this shoot, because she knows – better than anyone – just how difficult it will be for me to say goodbye to the little man who has inhabited our lives since 1988.

  I step out of the small set perched in the middle of the sound stage. Sheila puts her arm around me. We walk away from the group clustered around the set preparing for the next scene – which will see Poirot bid his final farewell to Hastings. She hugs me, and I hug her back; there is nothing more we can really say.

  The make-up ladies arrive to check the prosthetics on my hands which make them look old, and to make sure that I look ‘pretty poorly’, as Hettie likes to put it.

  The truth is that I do feel pretty poorly; I have a cold. I always seem to get an infection when Poirot does – it is mysterious, but it has been happening for years. What would Dr Freud make of it, I wonder? I played him in a six-part BBC television series once – and even died for the screen on his own day bed, brought down to the set from his home in Hampstead – but that death was simple compared to this one. This is the death of a dear friend.

  For years it has been Poirot and me, and to lose him is a pain almost beyond imagining.

  Yet as I walk back on to the set, I know I have to clear my mind of everything, of every emotion. I must concentrate on what is about to happen to my old friend, and to me.

  The script for Poirot’s last case is written by the British playwright and screenwriter Kevin Elyot, and he has chosen a haunting piece of Chopin to accompany Poirot’s last words to Hastings. And now Hettie calls for this to be played in the studio. The gentle, poignant chords surround us all, only serving to intensify the grief in our hearts.

  The music stops and I wait for the great bell to ring again, to mark the fact that we are about to shoot. Then I quietly ask if I may have silence for a few moments, just to allow Poirot and me a little peace to collect our thoughts. I will raise a single finger to indicate that the sound should start recording and the cameras roll before Hettie murmurs, ‘Action.’

  Lying there, I have decided to make my breathing more shallow, to underline the struggle that Poirot is having as he fights for life, but also to reveal that other things are troubling him as well. For he is also afraid: there is a part of this final story that has made him wonder whether God will truly ever forgive him for his actions, and, as any good Catholic, that thought troubles him deeply.

  Poirot is aware that the end is coming, but he is not sure when. For once in his life, Poirot cannot control the events around him. He is rendered a mere mortal again.

  In my mind, I have been exploring exactly how Poirot would feel in his last moments for weeks and weeks, but I did not fully understand what was happening until a month or so ago when I went for make-up and costume tests for this final film. That was the first time the old-age lines were painted onto my face and the prosthetics put on my hands; the first time that I sat in the wheelchair that I would be using in part of the story; the first time I fully understood emotionally that he was about to die. That brought home to me the reality that this was the end of the relationship between Poirot and me. Those thoughts come back to me as I ask for silence in order to clear my mind before I bid Hastings farewell. It is hard for both us. We have been as close as a pair of fictional friends could possibly be through nearly three decades of filming.

  As I softly speak Poirot’s final words to Hastings, I am looking at a man who I have worked with for so many years. As the music sweeps across the sound stage, the emotion overcomes even the strongest hearts. When Hastings leaves Poirot, the music swells – only to stop suddenly as the great bell rings to mark the end of the scen
e. Once again, silence falls across the set like a shroud.

  Sitting beside the sound man, the lovely Andrew Sissons, who has worked with us so many times before, Sheila is crying quietly, and he says to her in his soft, kindly voice, ‘I didn’t realise how emotional it would be.’

  My driver Sean O’Connor is watching the scene on the video playback in tears, and so is Peter Hale, who has been my stand-in for the past fourteen years, even though we do not look all that much alike. Sitting not far away, the make-up and continuity ladies are also wiping their eyes.

  For me, it is quite extraordinary to see everyone so emotional. I have never, ever experienced anything like it in my entire career.

  But Hettie and I dare not lose our focus. We know that there is a little way to go yet, and that we have to get there before we can allow ourselves to mourn. As an actor, I have always believed that I have to stand outside the role I am playing, aware of it, immersed in it, but still watchful. Otherwise what I am doing will not really be true, and I will never allow that.

  Hettie calls for the crew to move on to the scene in which Poirot is about to take his final, breaths, and I know that I am so lucky to have her as the director. We worked together once before, on a two-hour version of Dame Agatha’s The Mystery of the Blue Train, and I was very keen that she should be with me for Poirot’s final case because she was so sympathetic to his character. I believed her sensibilities and skill would be good for his last story, while it also meant that I could give 100 per cent of my trust to her, which was enormously important for me.

  As Hettie and the crew prepare, I leave the set. My dresser, Anne-Marie Digby, gives me my dressing gown and Sheila and I walk away into one of the far corners to talk.

  The next scenes are important. We must get them right, because I don’t want Poirot’s death to be sentimental; I want to make it as real as I possibly can. I would like the audience to understand that he is fighting to keep himself together, so that when he reaches for his rosary to ask God’s forgiveness, there is truth in every single frame of film.