Poirot and Me (39 page)

Norma Restarick, particularly caught the eye.

Her character arrives at the flat in

Whitehaven Mansions and confesses that she

thinks she ‘might have murdered someone’

to George, Poirot’s manservant, and then to

Poirot himself. Two years later, I was

delighted to find her playing alongside me on

the West End stage, in Arthur Miller’s great

play All My Sons.

The jewel in the crown of the four films in

this series, however, was the one that we

filmed last, Appointment with Death, one of

Dame Agatha’s most popular Poirot stories,

and one which, to my great delight, was to

be filmed abroad. It was always wonderful

for me to go on location outside Britain; it

brought me a sense of freedom, even though

I knew only too well that it makes Poirot

himself feel more than a little uncomfortable.

He is always uncomfortable in the heat,

hates getting dust on his suit, and is less

than enthusiastic about sleeping in a tent. I

suspect that he is never quite as much at

home in foreign parts as he is in Britain,

even though I knew that he travels regularly

in Dame Agatha’s stories, particularly to the

Middle East.

Dame Agatha set her original story,

published in 1938, in Petra in Jordan, but

because of the political uncertainty in the

Middle East, we actually filmed our

archaeological dig near a ruined eighteenth-

century French fortress, located in the dusty

countryside about an hour’s drive from the

Moroccan port of El Jadida, and two hours

from Casablanca. Once again, it was inspired

by an expedition that she made with Max

Mallowan. And this time, Dame Agatha

added a splendid set of characters, led by

the flamboyant Lord Boynton, who is

determined to locate the head of John the

Baptist, which he is convinced is to be found

somewhere in the area, and has spent years

trying to locate it. He has invited Poirot, who

is, of course, a Catholic, to witness what he

thinks will be his great triumph.

Written by Guy Andrews and directed by

Ashley Pearce, who had done Mrs McGinty’s

Dead the previous year, it boasted another

superb cast, including Tim Curry as the ever-

emotional Lord Boynton, Cheryl Campbell as

his wife, John Hannah as a psychiatrist, Mark

Gatiss, who had written Cat Among the

Pigeons for us, and the lovely American

actress Elizabeth McGovern as Dame Celia

Westholme, who, according to Dame Agatha,

is ‘much respected and almost universally

disliked’, and who is often said to be based

on the first British female MP, Lady Astor.

Filming was a joy. Sheila came with me,

and so many of the cast seemed to enjoy

themselves, in spite of the heat of the desert

in May. John Hannah, who is as keen an

amateur photographer as I am, tried to

persuade me to switch from my Leica to a

modern digital camera – without much

success, I should add, as I am still using my

Leica. Tim Curry also seemed to be having a

wonderful time, and there was also an

emotional reunion for me with another

member of the cast, Paul Freeman. I

remembered only too well arriving at the

Gateway Theatre in Chester in England in

1969 as a young actor and being in the cast

when Paul played Becket in T. S. Eliot’s

Murder in the Cathedral. I was so happy to

be with him again.

Once again, Guy Andrews had gone

deeper

into

Poirot’s

character,

and

strengthened his commitment to his faith,

with a scene in which he reads his Bible,

holding his rosary, and confirming his stern

moral compass when he describes one

character as ‘an evil woman’. These essential

elements had become ever more central in

my own portrayal of Poirot, which had

developed over the previous three series.

They meant that I now played Poirot with

considerably more seriousness than I had

done twenty years before. There was

humour in him still, but now there was an

added and deeper sense of faith and

conviction.

But there was also a sense, during the

filming, that this might, just might, be the

very last of my Poirots. I do not know where

the rumours came from, but people suddenly

kept asking me whether it would be, and I

kept on saying that I really did not know. I

did realise that this was a very expensive

film to shoot, with so many characters and

so many extras in the desert, and that there

was some feeling within ITV that perhaps it

was all costing too much to be justified in a

world of much cheaper ‘reality’ shows.

Certainly, there seemed to be a huge

question mark hanging over the future – and

one which was echoed at the end of the film.

The final scene of Appointment with Death

has Poirot present a crucifix to the lovely Zoe

Boyle, playing the orphaned young woman

Jinny, reminding her, as he does so, that

‘nothing cannot be repaired’ providing one

trusts in the hand of ‘Almighty God’. With

that, Poirot walks across the garden towards

the exit of the hotel, where he is captured in

silhouette. Jinny looks down at the crucifix in

her hand, and when she looks up, a moment

later, Poirot has disappeared.

There were many people among the cast

and crew who thought they might well have

seen Poirot’s final moments on film at that

moment, and I confess that I thought so too.

Chapter 17

‘YOU’RE NOT GOING TO

WEAR THOSE

HORRIBLE HAIRNET OR

MOUSTACHE-NET

THINGS, ARE YOU?’

Part of me was still convinced that my

Poirot had disappeared forever as the

first of our latest films, Mrs McGinty’s Dead,

was broadcast by ITV on 14 September

2008. After all, I was sixty-two. It had been

twenty years since we had started back at

Twickenham Studios, in the summer of 1988,

and this was the sixty-second film. Why

should it go on?

Looking back, I could hardly believe the

years of uncertainty and yet of extraordinary

delight. There was no question that the

British and American television audiences

still seemed to be enjoying them. They had

grown familiar with my little Belgian, and

they seemed happy to see him again. But it

was not only Britain and America. As the

years had passed, many other countries had

joined his fan club, with the series playing

across Europe, Russia, India, Japan, China,

Australia and New Zealand, not to mention

Brazil, Argentina and South Africa.

One of the things that made the series so

successful was that the audience seemed to

love Poirot and me by now. As one of the

press previews in England put it, when Mrs

McGinty’s Dead was shown, ‘The great

delight with Poirot is that you always know

what you are going to get – a cast jammed

with well-known names, high production

values, and of course the inimitable Suchet

as the possessor of those astonishingly

efficient little grey cells.’

Not

that

everyone

was

quite

so

complimentary, however. One reviewer

described it as ‘blissful, high-camp, settle-

down-on-the-sofa-with-a-bottle-of-wine-and-

turn-your-brain-off-stuff’, with a ‘Vaseliney

glow’ on the lens and ‘silly accents’.

I still liked Poirot a great deal, even

though I was prepared to admit to one

interviewer,

when Mrs

McGinty

was

screened, that he could be a bit of a pain. ‘I

find him irritating sometimes, with his

unforgiving view of life and pernickety

attitudes, but there you are; that’s him!’ I

explained.

But I still desperately wanted to film the

last stories and complete the entire canon. It

was my greatest ambition, even though I

knew that not everyone at ITV agreed with

me. We had completed sixty-five of Dame

Agatha’s stories about him, but there were

still five to go, including the story of his

death. If I could reach that landmark, it

would mean that I had filmed every single

Poirot story. There was nothing that I

wanted to do more. It would allow me to say

goodbye to him properly.

Cat Among the Pigeons was transmitted

on the following Sunday, and The Third Girl

the Sunday after that, and once again, the

critics were nothing if not kind, while the

audiences had grown again. It was so nice to

see Zoë Wanamaker, Harriet Walter and

Jemima Rooper grace these three films, just

as it was a joy to see David Yelland enjoying

himself playing George and serving Poirot

crème de menthe in the new Whitehaven

Mansions flat.

But it was to be fifteen months before

Appointment with Death, the fourth film in

that eleventh series, would eventually be

broadcast. ITV were very proud of it, and

wanted to give it the best possible

transmission date, on Christmas Day 2009,

but I wondered if there was a subliminal

message in their delay. Were they quietly

implying that this might indeed be Poirot’s

final bow?

I certainly had no idea of what their

intentions were, but neither was I going to

sit at home worrying about it. Just before

Christmas 2008, I got a telephone call out of

the blue from the American actor Kevin

Spacey, who had been acting as artistic

director of the Old Vic for the past six years.

He wanted to ask a favour – would I be

prepared to step in at the very last moment

to play an American lawyer called Roger

Cowan in a new play called Complicit, by the

Pulitzer-prize-winning author Joe Sutton. It

explored the question of press ethics and

whether

reporters

were

prepared

to

cooperate with the authorities to overlook

the torture of terrorist suspects.

Kevin Spacey was going to direct the play

himself, and it would not be a long run,

about five weeks between late January and

late February 2009. There were to be only

two other actors in the cast, Elizabeth

McGovern, who had appeared with me in

Appointment with Death, and the Hollywood

legend Richard Dreyfuss, star of Jaws, Close

Encounters of the Third Kind and The

Goodbye Girl, which won him an Oscar as

best actor. My part as Dreyfuss’s lawyer was

going to be played by another actor, but he

had been forced to pull out at the last

moment.

I could not resist the challenge. I wanted

to work with Kevin Spacey, whom I much

admired, and the play was about an

interesting and important moral issue –

whether investigative journalists should be

forced by law to reveal their private sources.

The play’s hero, played by Dreyfuss, had

written – in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on

New York – a powerful opinion piece

advocating the use of torture in the ‘war on

terror’, but had then undergone a change of

heart, in the wake of the American

government’s

apparent

disregard

for

international law and alleged military

brutality. A government source had provided

him

with

documents

that

apparently

supported his new opinion, but as a result,

he is summoned before an American grand

jury, who want him to reveal his source. If

he refuses, he risks a prison sentence.

It was a strong subject, and I enjoyed

playing it, but sadly it did not seem to

capture the imagination of the London

audience at the Old Vic. To my delight,

however, shortly after the run of Complicit

was

finished,

ITV

confirmed

that

Appointment with Death was certainly not

going to be the last Poirot. They announced

that they intended to make another four