The real star of the Orient Express? Poirot’s moustache
... and it even outshines Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh and Johnny Depp
Agatha Christie’s grandson, Mathew Prichard, says it all began with a busload of refugees in torquay.
‘that’s where my grandmother was living during World War I,’ he says when we meet. ‘and one day a bus arrived in the square and deposited 30 Belgians, one of whom didn’t look much like anyone else she’d ever seen in England.
‘I don’t think before then she’d had any particular affinity with Belgians. But apparently she was quite struck by that one.’
and so was born one of fiction’s great detectives — hercule Poirot, of the magnificent moustache and the insatiable sweet tooth, the ridiculous accent, the ‘leetle grey cells’ and the mind like a steel trap.
arguably Christie’s best-loved character, Poirot appeared in 33 novels and 50 short stories and has been portrayed on stage, film and television by everyone from Charles Laughton to Orson Welles, Peter Ustinov and David Suchet.
Now he is to be brought to life again by Sir Kenneth Branagh, who plays the great man in an all-star remake of the 1974 movie Murder On the Orient Express, which opens next month.
It is more like the Orient Excess — lavish sets, swoon-worthy costumes, a murder mystery set on a train stuck in a snowdrift, and a cast including Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer and Penelope Cruz.
and Branagh, who also directed the film, assures us when we meet on set that, yes, the moustache will appear in all its glory.
‘a character in one of the Christie books says Poirot has the most magnificent moustache in England,’ he laughs.
‘We looked at some moustaches used in other interpretations of him and most were a little smaller than ours. We wanted one where sometimes you feel the moustache enters the room before he does.
‘We agreed that Poirot has decided his moustache matters. It’s so big he can hide behind it — he is a man who values his isolation and is something of an outsider, and the moustache expresses those elements.’
HE aDDS that the detective’s foreign-ness in the stratified English society of the time is central to who he is.
‘Belgians can have a beautiful and surreal sense of creativity — think of Magritte, or herge, the creator of tintin — and Poirot allows that flight of Belgian imagination to inspire him and see the clue or connection in a way other people might not. It keeps him a very surprising character, as well as being as smart as you would hope a detective would be.
‘he has spent a lot of time travelling both in England and elsewhere, and he is amused by the determination of the English not to take themselves too seriously. he sometimes uses his accent and his “funny little ways” to put people off guard.
‘In the book, Mary Debenham [played by Daisy Ridley] says: “What a ridiculous little man, it’s impossible to take him seriously!” But while people are dismissing him in this way, they also reveal themselves.’
Branagh says he has long been an admirer of both the original book and the 1974 film.
‘It’s a revenge tale and a morality tale. the combination of travel through Europe on a winter night, a group of mixed strangers in a confined environment, beautiful scenery outside, wonderful food, the gentle rocking motion of the train — it’s haunting.’
as much a character as any cast member is the Orient Express itself, sweeping its passengers from Istanbul towards Italy until it is halted by a snowdrift in the mountains of Slovenia.
to recreate the locomotive, the film-makers used a real train meticulously fitted out and backed by landscape footage projected onto large screens outside.
‘It moved from our “station” in Longcross Studios and travelled for about a mile up and down the leafy lanes of Surrey, while the magic of cinema made it look like Yugoslavia,’ says Branagh.
then there are the passengers. ‘Judi Dench, who plays Princess Dragomiroff, and Derek Jacobi have known each other from a thousand years ago,’ Branagh adds. ‘Johnny Depp worked with her in the 2001 film Chocolat.’
Dame Judi admits that, after the demands of her previous role as Queen Victoria in Victoria and abdul, a small part as Christie’s semi-invalid princess came as quite a pleasant rest.
‘I just had a lot of sitting around on the train with some quite nice clothes and a lot of jewels, very few lines, two very nice dogs and Olivia Colman playing my companion, Fraulein Schmidt. We had a glorious time.’
She says that for her, what set this film apart from many others was that all the actors were working together all the time.
‘In so many other films you’re all doing different bits and you never see each other.
‘I remember once being in a film and going to the premiere and I saw an actor friend of mine there. I said: “hello! What are you doing here?” and he said: “I’m in it!” In this case we were all in it all the time.’
holding up the american side of the cast is actor and comedian Josh gad, put-upon secretary to the evil Mr Ratchett, played by Johnny Depp.
‘What was fascinating was waiting for Johnny to get into character because you know every detail is going to count,’ says gad. ‘I grew up watching Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, and now I take my kids to the Pirates movies. So I was interested to see how he would deliver.’
Derek Jacobi adds that for a film such as this, the quality of the performances is even more vital than usual. ‘Because if you have already seen an agatha Christie film or read the book you already know whodunnit, so there’s not much thrill left.’
FOR Mathew Prichard, meanwhile, overseer of the Christie literary estate since the author’s death in 1976, she was also granny. ‘and she was a splendid grandmother — loving, generous, helpful and very normal,’ he says.
‘I was her only grandson and we had a great time together. She was a wonderful storyteller, of course, but if you ever asked her what her profession was, she said it was being a married woman.
‘I first discovered other people knew about her when I was at boarding school. In those days there was always a new “Christie for Christmas” and she’d send an early copy to me at school.
‘Whenever we were sent a book, the headmaster would take it away to make sure we weren’t reading anything improper. after a couple of years, it occurred to me that my grandmother’s books were taking an awfully long time to come back from his office.
‘Years later he finally admitted that his wife was a huge fan and she’d insisted on reading them!’
Murder On The Orient express is in cinemas from November 3.