BBC steals Poirot – but not its star Suchet – from ITV

THE BBC has ‘stolen’ Hercule Poirot from ITV – but viewers hoping to see David Suchet play the Belgian detective again are set to be disappointed.

The corporation is on the hunt for a new actor to star in The ABC Murders, which will be brought to screen as part of a £20million deal to dramatise a slew of Agatha Christie stories, but whoever is chosen will face a challenge to win over audiences who spent more than two decades watching Mr Suchet play the eccentric Belgian.

He bowed out in 2013, once the broadcaster had exhausted Agatha Christie’s entire library of Poirot stories. The ABC Murders, which starred Suchet as Poirot in the ITV version filmed in 1992, is one of seven Christie novels to be televised by the BBC over the next four years.