Monsieur Poirot bids adieu
As the TV series takes a final bow, David Suchet talks about the defining role of his long career. By Elizabeth Grice
C LUMSY, arthritic fingers scrabble at the bedclothes, reaching uncertainly for something to alleviate the crushing heart pains. In a moment of deliberate ambiguity, it is not his amyl nitrate ampoules that Hercule Poirot grasps from the bedside table but a rosary. The master sleuth has never seemed more vulnerable. The sudden frailty of Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective is superbly captured by David Suchet, in his last television appearance as Poirot after 25 years in the role. In 70 episodes, he has encompassed the whole canon of murder mysteries featuring Poirot, the defining role of his career and a broadcasting tour de force. Now, as ITV screens its concluding episodes in the UK, he’s peeling off the extravagant moustache and laying aside the gold watch chain for good.
In the final one of all, Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case, Poirot is a wasted man, immobilised from the waist down but glittering with intent. The investigator’s fussy, waddling walk and dandified appearance are scarcely missed as Suchet condenses his formidable acting skills into his character’s hollow features.
“He’s a walking brain, so when he’s in the wheelchair, all the energy is here,” says Suchet, tapping at the little grey cells. The final shot (in both senses) takes place at the late Agatha Christie’s own summer home in Devon, and Suchet was quite stricken to be saying farewell to the old boy. “It was the hardest day filming of my whole career,” he says. “Poirot has been my best friend, part of my family, part of my life. I’ve lived with this man. He’s allowed me the career I don’t think I would have had without him.”
Poirot has made Suchet an international star, a name that can fill a theatre. Next year, he goes on a world tour with Last Confession , a play about the mysterious 33day papacy of John Paul I, but he knows that questions about Poirot, not his Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, will dominate every breakfast television show.
“People write to me from all over the world telling me how Poirot has seen them through bereavements and illnesses; how he has comforted them because they feel safe with him,” says the actor.
Suchet has always paid Poirot the compliment of taking him seriously. “He wasn’t aware of his own silliness,” he says. “He is a pure eccentric and total eccentrics are unaware of their eccentricity.” Professional courtesy forbids him to mention the two other memorable Poirots — Peter Ustinov and Albert Finney — by name, but he leaves no doubt that his own interpretation is closest to what’s on the page. “You can smile with him,” Christie’s granddaughter once warned Suchet, “but never laugh at him.”
It takes about three minutes in Suchet’s crisp but genial presence to detect certain Poirot-like traits. Not a hair is out of place. He is ferociously alert. There are papers on the desk in front of him that he neatens from time to time even though no one has touched them. “I do like order,” he confesses. “Poirot is a visual man. If he looks at chaos on his desk, he will feel chaotic. I love symmetry. I will go into a room and, if I’m on my own, I will straighten the crooked picture, as he does. I’m also very traditional as a man. I’m not modern and never have been. I think I was born 50 years of age and out of my time.”
Before Poirot, Suchet already had outstanding performances as Caliban, Shylock and Iago for the Royal Shakespeare Company to his credit. There are hints of a return to the RSC in a “wonderful iconic role” but he cannot say more. “There is something pulling me back to Stratford, to my roots, to the theatre.”
Suchet has often said that what prevents him from being typecast is the fact that he is a character actor and not a celebrity actor. For that, he thanks his lack of stature. “I am very squat and stocky,” he says. “I am not the handsome man. I was never going to be the next Cary Grant and now I look back and thank God for it.”
Poirot would concur. — © The Daily Telegraph, London