Poirot and Me (4 page)

work. To sustain myself in the early 1970s, I

found myself unloading lorry loads of dog

food, then working as a lift operator in a

block of flats, and finally, selling and hiring

formal wear at Moss Bros.

In fact, I was so terrified that I was never

going to work as an actor again that when

Moss Bros generously offered me an

apprenticeship as a junior manager, I was all

set to accept it. But fate intervened. On the

very morning when I was going to say yes, I

got a call offering me a part in a television

show called The Protectors, starring Robert

Vaughn and Nyree Dawn Porter, which was

shooting at that very moment in Venice. I

didn’t hesitate – I took the plane to Venice.

It was the end of my career in men’s wear.

Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to work

regularly in the theatre, in films and on radio

and

television.

I

joined

the

Royal

Shakespeare Company in 1973, at the age of

twenty-seven, and loved it, just as I loved

appearing in films like Song for Europe,

Harry and the Hendersons, with John

Lithgow, and The Falcon and the Snowman,

with Sean Penn and Tim Hutton, as well as A

World Apart, where I played a distinctly

frightening South African police interrogator.

But it was Blott, on television, that made

me – Tom Sharpe rang me in tears to say

that he’d never expected to see his character

so beautifully portrayed. I was very touched.

That was why Brian Eastman, the

Brighton-born film and television producer

who’d produced Blott for the BBC, rang me

up on that autumn evening in 1987 and

asked if he could come round to see me and

take me out to dinner. He’s a tall, slim man

who likes to work with people he knows and

respects. As a result of Blott, we’d become

friends – so I said yes.

Brian arrived at the house, had a chat with

my wife Sheila and saw my son and

daughter, Robert and Katherine, who were

then six and four, before taking me out to

the local Indian restaurant.

That’s how we ended up sitting opposite

each other over a chicken madras and a

vegetable biryani when Brian said suddenly,

‘Have you read much of Agatha Christie?’

I blanched. The honest truth was that I’d

never read any at all, not so much as a

single book. My father, a wonderful man and

a leading gynaecologist in his day, had

always encouraged my elder brother John,

my younger brother Peter and me to read,

but had also told us: ‘Read the greats, never

forget Shakespeare, challenge yourselves.’

We’d all taken his advice, and it was one

reason why I’d loved playing Tolstoy’s poor

Pozdnyshev in The Kreutzer Sonata.

‘Well, to be honest, Brian, I haven’t read

any,’ I said rather meekly. ‘She’s really not

my style. But I know she has a great many

fans.’

Brian seemed untroubled. ‘Have you seen

any of the Poirot films?’ he asked, putting his

spoon into the pilau rice.

I’d done more than that. I’d actually

appeared in one.

‘I appeared with Peter Ustinov in the CBS

film Thirteen at Dinner in 1985, just before I

did Iago,’ I told him. ‘I played Inspector

Japp.’

In fact, I’d taken the job to make a little

money before going up to Stratford, which I

knew wouldn’t make me a great deal. I had

a young family to support. What I didn’t tell

Brian was that I thought Inspector Japp was

probably the worst performance I’d ever

given in my life. I didn’t know what on earth

to do with the part and so, for some

unfathomable reason, I’d decided to play him

like a kind of Jewish bookie and make him

eat whenever he appeared on the screen. I

even made him eat Poirot’s breakfast in one

scene, which amused Ustinov hugely.

Peter and I had talked about Poirot while

we were filming. He liked the part because

he could bring out what he saw as the

comedy in the role, but he knew that he

could never play the Poirot that Agatha

Christie had actually written. Peter was too

large, physically and as a character, for the

true Poirot; his own personality got in the

way, and he used the accent as part of his

comic armoury.

But, during a break in the filming one day,

Peter did say to me, ‘You could play Poirot,

you know, and you would be very good at it.’

It was extremely flattering of him, but I did

not take the idea very seriously. That

conversation came back to me that October

night, as Brian Eastman and I talked over

our Indian meal.

‘I’ve seen Albert Finney, of course,’ I told

him, as he pushed a plate of rice across the

table, ‘in Murder on the Orient Express,

which I really enjoyed.’

I remember thinking privately that Albert’s

performance in the 1974 film had struck me

as rather tense and stiff – he hardly ever

seemed to move his neck – while his accent

had been very gruff, almost angry. But that

didn’t

detract

from

his

excellent

performance, nor the superb cast, which

included Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, John

Gielgud and Sean Connery, who used to live

not that far away from me in Acton when he

was still married to the achingly beautiful

Diane Cilento.

Brian took another mouthful of curry and

then said, ‘Well, I’ve taken the idea of a new

series of television films based on Poirot to

ITV in London, and they’re very keen on

making ten one-hour films from the short

stories next year.’

He paused, then dropped his bombshell.

‘And we are very keen that you should

play Poirot.’

My spoonful of curry stopped halfway to

my mouth. I was, quite literally, astounded. I

can remember the shock to this day.

Me, the serious Shakespearean actor,

portrayer of men with haunted souls whose

dark deeds forever surround them, playing a

fastidious, balding detective; I couldn’t quite

grasp the idea, but I didn’t say no. I was too

astonished.

As we left the restaurant, Brian said, ‘I’ll

send you some of the books. Have a look at

them and see what you think.’ Then he

disappeared into the night, and I walked

home to Sheila in a daze.

Two days later, a couple of the full-length

Poirot novels arrived, and shortly afterwards,

a copy of Poirot’s Casebook, containing some

of the short stories that Brian thought should

make up the first series of ten television

programmes. I was intrigued, but I also

thought I’d better know what I might be

getting myself into. So I started to read

them.

And as I did so, it slowly dawned on me

that I’d never actually seen the character I

was reading about on the screen. He wasn’t

like Albert Finney, or Peter Ustinov, or Ian

Holm in the 1986 BBC drama Murder by the

Book. He was quite, quite different: more

elusive, more pedantic and, most of all,

more human than the person I’d seen on the

screen.

But I still wasn’t sure whether I should

play him. So I decided to ask my elder

brother John, who was then a newscaster at

Independent Television News in London. He

is two years older than I am, and I’ve always

looked up to him, so I rang him.

‘John,’ I said, a little nervously, ‘do you

read Agatha Christie?’

There was a slight pause at the other end

of the line. ‘Not in recent years,’ he said, ‘but

I’ve dipped into one or two in the past.’

‘Do you know her character Hercule

Poirot?’ I asked.

‘Of course, he’s her most famous creation.’

‘Well, they’re thinking of making ten one-

hour films of his stories, with me playing the

role. Only I don’t know the character. What

do you think of him?’

There was a distinct hush.

‘I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole,’ John

said firmly.

‘Seriously?’ I blurted out.

‘Yes. I mean, Poirot’s a bit of a joke, a

buffoon. It’s not you at all.’

I gulped.

‘Well, what I’m reading isn’t a buffoon,’ I

told him. ‘It’s a character that I’ve never

seen portrayed.’

There was another silence.

‘It would be a wonderful challenge to see

if I could bring that character to the screen,’

I said, stumbling on.

There was a slight sigh. John is an

enormously kind and gentle man, and would

never want to upset me.

‘Of course, you must do it if you want to,’

he said quietly. ‘Good luck. Only one word of

warning: it may be difficult to get people to

take him seriously.’

It turned out he was quite right.

But the more I thought about the man in

Dame Agatha’s books, the more convinced I

became that I could bring the true Poirot to

life on the screen, a man no audience had

seen before. And so, a few days later, I rang

Brian Eastman.

‘I think I’d like to do it, Brian,’ I said, with

my heart in my mouth. It was just after the

New Year of 1988.

‘That’s wonderful news,’ he said quickly.

‘I’ll be in touch with your agent. No one else

was approached, you know. You were our

first choice – and I’m absolutely delighted

you’d like to play him.’

So began the long journey to bring Poirot to

life for millions, and to do that, I knew I had

to discover every single thing I could about

the detective with the small waxed

moustache and those ever-present ‘little

grey cells’.

I started by collecting copies of all the

novels and short stories featuring him and

piled them up beside my bed. I wanted to

get to the very heart of what Dame Agatha

thought of him and what he was really like,

and to do that, I had to read every word his

creator had ever written about him. I didn’t

want my Poirot to be a caricature, something

made up in a film or television studio, I

wanted him to be real, as real as he was in

the books, as real as I could possibly make

him.

The first thing I realised was that I was a

slightly too young to play him. He was a

retired police detective in his sixties when he

first appeared in The Mysterious Affair at

Styles, while I was in my early forties. Not

only that, he was also described as a good

deal fatter than I was. There was going to

have to be some considerable padding, not

to mention very careful make-up and

costume, if I was going to convince the world

that I was the great Hercule Poirot.

Even more important, the more I read

about him, the more convinced I became

that he was a character that demanded to

be taken seriously. He wasn’t a silly little

man with a funny accent, any more than

Sherlock Holmes was just a morphine addict

with a taste for playing the violin. There was

a depth and quality to the Poirot that Dame

Agatha had created – and that was what I

desperately wanted to bring to the screen.

I took the role of Poirot because it

precisely symbolised everything I believed

about being an actor, which I hadn’t truly

discovered until well after I’d started out in

Chester, at the age of twenty-three, back in

1969.

In my first years in the profession, I

struggled to find my identity, to understand

why I was actually doing it. What was it that

I wanted to be as an actor exactly? Was it

just about dressing up and becoming

someone else? Was I desperate to become

some kind of star?

I was confused. I’d achieved part of my

dream – I’d become a professional actor –

but what did that mean? What did I want?

I was so uncertain that I looked up the

dictionary definition of what an actor was. It

defined it as a thespian, a theatre player –

but that was really no help to me at all. It

didn’t strike any kind of chord. If my only

objective was to strut around the stage or

the film studio pretending to be someone