Poirot and Me (2 page)

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 scene. 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.

All around me the crew are trying their

best to help me. I realise that I am so lucky

to have them too, and vow to tell them so

when we finally wrap the filming the

following Monday afternoon – after we’ve

had the weekend to recover.

Sheila walks me back to the set, and I