Poirot and Me (44 page)

twelve original stories, called The Capture of

Cerberus, where she is running a London

nightclub called Hell, guarded by an

enormous dog. But in this new version, she

is simply staying in the hotel in the Alps with

her daughter Alice. Orla Brady took over the

part of the Countess from Kika Markham,

who had played her in The Double Clue,

which had been broadcast no less than

twenty-two years earlier. Orla was joined in

the cast by actor and writer Simon Callow,

now rightly famous for his one-man shows

portraying the life and works of Charles

Dickens.

In the best Poirot tradition, Guy gave

everyone in the Swiss hotel some kind of

guilty secret, which they are protecting when

Poirot arrives, and the denouement is

distinctly more dramatic than in some of the

earlier stories. It even includes a struggle

with a gun, but Andy Wilson, who directed

the film and had done both Death on the

Nile and Taken at the Flood in the past,

made sure to keep the touch primarily light

throughout, in spite of the drama of the

ending. After we had finished it, I found I

had enjoyed it more than I had expected to,

being so aware how very different our

version was to Dame Agatha’s original.

Somehow, I do not think she would have

objected too much to what we had done, as

we had included so many of her trademark

twists and turns. Indeed, it was almost as if

we were now following in her footsteps,

aware of her looking over our shoulders.

Then, towards the end of May 2013, came

the moment that I had been preparing

myself for quietly since the filming of Curtain

at the end of 2012. We started to film our

very last Poirot film, and the reality of what

life might be like after the little Belgian and I

finally parted became a stark reality. Not

that I had much time to think about that as

we began; there was so much to do, and so

little time to do it in. The shooting schedule

demanded that we were finished by the end

of June, so that the programmes could be

broadcast later in the year, and so I did not

have much time to reflect as we gathered

together at Pinewood again to make Dead

Man’s Folly.

Not one of Dame Agatha’s Poirot

masterpieces, it was published in 1956, the

year she was awarded a CBE in the New

Year’s Honours by the new young Queen

Elizabeth II – it was not until 1971 that she

became a dame. Dead Man’s Folly has many

typical Poirot characteristics. There is a

country house, an aristocratic family intent

on bickering, some dysfunctional friends from

the ‘county set’, and a former owner who

may bear a grudge, while, to add a little

piquancy, there is also the reappearance of

her favourite fictional crime writer Ariadne

Oliver. When it first appeared, the critic

Maurice Richardson, in the Observer, called it

‘Nowhere near a vintage Christie, but a

pleasing table read.’

The story opens with Mrs Oliver invited to

a country house to help organise a ‘murder

hunt’ (instead of a ‘treasure hunt’) at the

village fete, held in the grounds of the

fictional Nasse House on the banks of the

fictional River Helm in Devon. It is owned by

Sir George Stubbs and his young wife, Lady

Hattie. Part of Mrs Oliver’s idea is to have

the ‘body’ found in the boathouse on the

edge of the river, but as she is planning what

to do, she senses that something is

dreadfully wrong and sends a telegram to

Poirot, urging him to come down at once.

Our new version – there had been a

television film made from the story in 1986,

with Peter Ustinov as Poirot – was written by

Nick Dear and remained absolutely true to

Dame Agatha’s original story. To my delight,

Zoë Wanamaker was back again, to play

Ariadne Oliver; it was such a treat to have

her with me for this last film in the series. It

was the seventieth Poirot television film I

had made since that summer morning in

Twickenham a quarter of a century earlier.

As we started shooting, I was not quite

sure what to expect. Would the memories of

the past twenty-five years ambush me every

day, the ghosts of so many stories and so

many characters stalk me as I climbed back

into my padding and spats for the final time?

I really did not know, but one thing I was

certain of: I was determined to make this

last film a true celebration of the whole

experience of being Poirot. I knew I would

mourn him when he was gone – I thought

millions of other people would too – but I

was not going to allow him to depart without

the most joyful experience I could bring to

him. This was my final chance to show just

how much I loved and admired the little

man.

There would even be one last chance for

Poirot to reveal something of his firm moral

compass. At one point, he tells the former

owner of Nasse House, Mrs Folliatt, played

by the Irish-born actress Sinéad Cusack –

wife of actor Jeremy Irons – that she knows

who the killer is but is not prepared to say

so, because she thinks that would be ‘wrong

– even wicked’. At that point, Poirot

struggles to keep his temper: ‘As wicked as

the killing of a fourteen-year-old girl?’ he

demands. When she replies that the matter

is ‘over and done’, Poirot attacks her as

fiercely as he did the passengers trapped in

the Orient Express. ‘It is never finished with

a murder. Jamais!’

That was the voice of the Poirot who had

grown in depth and complexity with me over

the years of filming, that was the Poirot who

could rage at the foolishness of people who

thought they were above the law, and who

thought that they could – literally – get away

with murder, because they had every right to

do so. That was the man whom I had always

fought to protect, the man who wanted to

save the world, and the innocent, from evil,

the man who had grown to be so much a

part of me.

The filming was particularly personal and

poignant for another reason – far beyond

even Poirot’s character. The second most

significant thing about Dead Man’s Folly ,

beyond the fact that it was the last film in

the series, was that the fictional Nasse

House was so clearly inspired by Dame

Agatha’s own magnificent Georgian house,

Greenway, on the banks of the River Dart in

Devon, which she and Max Mallowan had

bought in 1939 for £6,000. They remained

there after the outbreak of war, but then it

was requisitioned to be used first as a

nursery for children evacuated from London,

and then as accommodation for men from

the United States Navy.

After they left Greenway, the Mallowans

moved to London, where they remained for

the remainder of the war, only returning to

Greenway for the summers after the war was

over. It was to become one of three houses

they had, along with one in Chelsea in

London – where Dame Agatha always

insisted she felt it was ‘easier to write’ – and

another in Wallingford in Berkshire. But the

one she loved the most was Greenway.

So, in some strange twist of fate for Poirot

and for me, we were to shoot the final

sequences of Dead Man’s Folly at Greenway

itself in the last days of June 2013, sending

Hercule Poirot to Dame Agatha’s own home.

It would be the first time that the fictional

character of Poirot arrived at the home of his

creator. What would it be like? How would

he feel? How would I feel? I could not get

the thought out of my mind.

Chapter 19

‘BUT MOST OF ALL, TO

YOU ALL, AU REVOIR

AND MERCI

BEAUCOUP!’

The afternoon’s summer sun is glinting

off the River Dart below me as I am

sitting in the back of a vintage car driving

towards the square white front of Greenway,

Dame Agatha’s three-storey Georgian house

on the banks of the river in Devon. I am in

full Poirot costume – black patent leather

shoes, spats, three-piece suit complete with

waistcoat and watch chain, light overcoat,

Homburg hat, moustache and, of course,

carrying Poirot’s favourite silver-handled

cane – when I climb out of the car and walk

towards the front door.

It feels distinctly strange. For this is the

first time that Poirot has ever visited the

home of the woman who created him, the

first time that her fictional detective has set

foot in the house that she bought with her

second husband Max Mallowan in 1938.

Greenway is now very much the spiritual

home of the woman who went on to become

the biggest-selling novelist the world has

ever known, with two billion books to her

name.

As I put my hand out to reach for the

handle, there is a moment, a single, piercing

moment, when I am not truly sure who I am.

Am I an actor, who has played the role of

Poirot for a quarter of a century in seventy

television films, or have I actually become

this little man that the world, and I, love so

much? Where do I stop, and where does he

begin? It feels as if I am in a dream,

watching me being me, and yet playing

Poirot.

It is only when Tom Vaughan, the director

of this very last film in the thirteenth and

final series of Poirot films, shouts, ‘Cut’ at the

top of his voice that I snap out of my reverie

and back into the reality of the final five days

of shooting of Dead Man’s Folly , the last

Poirot that I will ever make.

But apart from a kind of strange confusion,

there also a sense of achievement, because I

know how fortunate I am to have had the

opportunity to play such an astonishing

character over all these years, and to see

him blossom so dramatically around me, to

see his exploits dubbed into more than fifty

languages and broadcast in almost every

country around the world. It is amazing,

humbling, and the greatest present that I

could ever have been given.

Yet on this summer Sunday afternoon in

June 2013, I also know only too well that it

is the beginning of the very end. In four

days’ time, I will take off my armadillo

padding for the final time, take the pocket

watch from my waistcoat, the little silver

vase from my lapel, and the moustache from

my face for the last time.

But even though a part of me is sad at the

thought or letting go of Poirot, there is

another part of me that is enormously elated

that he has finally been done justice on the

screen – I have brought every one of his

stories, with the exception of a tiny short

story called The Lemesurier Inheritance, to

the television audience.

I never expected it, never – certainly not

when we started shooting the first films at

Twickenham Studios on 1 July 1988. By a

strange coincidence, we will finish shooting

the final film on 28 June 2013, almost

exactly twenty-five years later to the day. It

has been the most extraordinary journey,

but it feels entirely appropriate to finish it by

filming in the grounds of Greenway, haunting

the gardens and grounds where Dame

Agatha imagined Poirot for so many of her

stories.

Certainly she was fascinated by him.

Indeed, I have been told, though I cannot

say whether it is true, that she twice

reported actually having seen him alive

during her life – so real was he in her

imagination. He is the extraordinary gift that

she passed on to me, one which I can never

thank her for, because she died a dozen

years before I first played him on television.

Looking out across the River Dart outside

Dame Agatha’s house now, I am so grateful

for the opportunity, and for the assistance I