by David Suchet
When I got back from China, there was no sign of another Poirot series, but I was offered what was to become one of the most interesting roles in my television career so far – to play the controversial newspaper and publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, owner of the Daily Mirror and a British MP, who had disappeared from his yacht off the Canary Islands in suspicious circumstances on 5 November 1991, at the age of sixty-eight. His body was later found floating in the Atlantic, an apparent suicide, as there was no evidence of foul play, though rumours abounded as to whether he had been assassinated. He was given what amounted to a state funeral in Israel, and the BBC wanted to make a documentary-drama about the final months of his life.
I had of course used ‘Captain Bob’ Maxwell’s career as part of my inspiration to capture Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, and here I was being asked to play the man himself. It was a wonderful opportunity to convey his extraordinary, serpentine charm, which was always mixed with touches of paranoia, in a script by Craig Warner called simply Maxwell. I relished the chance to play a robber-baron: the real Robert Maxwell.
There was a problem, however. I was neither as tall nor as broad as the six-foot-three, twenty-two-stone Maxwell. But I decided that I did not want to be padded up to look bigger, or to wear lifts in my shoes; I simply wanted to capture his voice. For me, that was the true entry point into his character, not his size, because his voice came from deep down within him. It was an expression of his power, his self-assurance and his incredible self-confidence – no small feat for a man who had not even owned a pair of shoes until he was nine years old. I had also been lucky enough to meet Maxwell’s wife, Betty, when I was playing Melmotte, and had the greatest respect for her and the way she had coped with her husband’s excesses with such dignity and grace. It was another reason to portray him as a complicated man, rather than as a caricature.
The critics seemed to like the result. The Independent said that ‘Maxwell’s lethal arbitrariness was beautifully conveyed,’ while The Times accepted that although it ‘took about a minute to forget that the real Bob was twice his weight and size . . . his voice, uncannily near Maxwell’s own, occupied the space that his girth failed to’.
Immediately after filming Maxwell, I joined the cast of a British crime movie called The Bank Job, loosely based on an event in September 1971, when thieves tunnelled into the vault of a bank in Baker Street, London, and stole millions of pounds’ worth of jewellery and cash from a string of safety-deposit boxes. The robbers were never caught, and the film suggested that the reason for this may have been that the boxes also contained details of police corruption, as well as evidence that a female member of the royal family had been caught up in a sex scandal. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, creators of the unforgettable comedy Porridge starring Ronnie Barker for BBC television, and directed by the Australian Roger Donaldson, it was a caper from beginning to end. But it gave me the chance to play a sleazy porn baron called Lew Vogel, with some tremendous dialogue from Dick and Ian. Something must have worked, because it reached number one at the British box office when it was released in February 2008.
By the time filming was over, and just after Maxwell was transmitted on BBC2 on 4 May 2007, there was still no sign of any further Poirots, and so I went back to the theatre and rehearsals for a new play at the Chichester Festival Theatre in Sussex. Written by an American lawyer, Roger Crane, and called The Last Confession, it was a thriller about the election of Pope John Paul I in 1978, and I was playing the power-broking, though God-doubting, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, who engineers the election of the Cardinal of Venice, Albino Luciani, to his short-lived papacy as John Paul I. He died just thirty-three days after his election, among rumours that he may have been murdered.
The company took this portrait of Vatican politics at their most Machiavellian on tour in England, visiting Plymouth, Bath, Malvern and Milton Keynes, before arriving at the Theatre Royal in London for a limited run between 28 June and 15 September 2007. Most of the national theatre critics liked David Jones’s production, with The Times capturing precisely what I had in mind for the part. ‘Suchet’s Benelli is a darkly silky creature,’ their critic wrote, ‘rent by a mounting crisis of faith and by his guilt over his unwitting complicity in Luciani’s destruction.’ Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph suggested that I had managed to give ‘another compelling portrait of power’ in the wake of my performance as Robert Maxwell.
In November 2008, I was lucky enough to win the International Emmy Award for best performance by an actor for my portrait of Maxwell, at the thirty-sixth annual awards ceremony of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in New York.
During the run of The Last Confession, ITV finally decided that they did indeed want to do another four Poirot films, ending with one of her best ‘foreign’ stories, Appointment with Death, set on an archaeological dig in Egypt. And so, in the early autumn of 2007, Sean and I found ourselves driving to the Poirot set again, though no longer from the house in Pinner. In March 2006, Sheila and I had decided to move back to London, to a flat by the Thames, after nearly twenty years in the suburbs. The children had grown up, and we did not need the same amount of space and quiet that we had enjoyed when they were young. Besides, we wanted to go to the theatre again, and being in London made that a lot easier.
The first of the eleventh series of Poirot films was to be Dame Agatha’s Mrs McGinty’s Dead, which was first published in America as Blood Will Tell. She had written the novel in 1952, the year in which her record-breaking play, The Mousetrap, first appeared in the West End of London, where it is running still. Indeed, she dedicated the book to Peter Saunders, who had produced her play, ‘in gratitude for his kindness to authors’. Originally set in post-war Britain, describing some of the hardships that the now impoverished middle-classes had to contend with, it re-introduced Dame Agatha’s fictional alter ego, the crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, who had first appeared in Cards on the Table.
By now, Ariadne is as fed up with her Finnish detective, Sven Hjerson, as Dame Agatha had privately become with Hercule Poirot. In her novel, she even has her fictional novelist explain, ‘Fond of him? If I met that bony, gangling, vegetable-eating Finn in real life, I’d do a better murder than any I’ve ever invented.’ I am sure that there were moments when Dame Agatha felt exactly the same way about Hercule Poirot.
In the introduction to the serialisation of Appointment with Death in the Daily Mail in 1938, for example, she had memorably remarked, ‘There are moments when I have felt: “Why-why-why did I ever invent this detestable, bombastic, tiresome little creature!” . . . eternally straightening things, eternally boasting, eternally twisting his moustache and tilting his egg-shaped head . . . In moments of irritation, I point out that by a few strokes of the pen . . . I could destroy him utterly. He replies, grandiloquently: “Impossible to get rid of Poirot like that! He is much too clever.”’
Dame Agatha knew only too well that she was ‘beholden to him financially’ – as she put it – but that did nothing to prevent her, just two years later, from writing the novel that depicted the end of Poirot’s life, Curtain. Reportedly, Collins became aware of the story’s existence but did not want Poirot killed off, and certainly she went on writing stories about him for another thirty years. Indeed, the story of his death was not published until 1975, shortly before her own death.
Given Dame Agatha’s annoyance with Poirot at that time, it could be significant that when Mrs McGinty’s Dead was turned into a film, it was renamed Murder Most Foul, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1964, Hercule Poirot was eliminated completely and replaced by Miss Marple, played by Margaret Rutherford.
With Zoë Wanamaker back as Ariadne, and directed by Ashley Pearce, from a script by Nick Dear, who had written The Hollow, the start of filming was like returning to the Poirot family. I knew so many of the crew, from the make-up ladies to the sound men, the runners to the wardrobe mistresses. But I was determined not to allow that sen
se of family to prevent me from deepening still further my portrait of Poirot, as I had been doing in the past two series. As I told one interviewer at the time, ‘I’ve discovered quite a cruel side to him, which you’ll see at the end of Mrs McGinty’s Dead.’
The brutal story of the murder of an elderly cleaning lady in the fictional village of Broadhinny, a crime for which her lodger is convicted and sentenced to death, it calls for Poirot to race against time to prove the man’s innocence. It is also one of the few stories in which the little Belgian is all but killed, when someone tries to push him under a train in order to prevent him discovering the truth. The attempt provokes a fierce reaction from Poirot, and sees him lose his temper spectacularly, though without losing his natural poise.
With a splendid cast, including Sian Philips and Paul Rhys, Mrs McGinty’s Dead also revealed something that I had not quite grasped before. I noticed that more and more of the actors appearing with me came up and talked to me about my interpretation of Poirot. They were interested in the way I playing him. I think some of that had to do with my profile in the theatre, which had grown steadily since Oleanna in 1994, and had been cemented since the last Poirot series.
The second film in the series, which we also filmed in the autumn of 2007, was based on what is considered by many to be one of Dame Agatha’s ‘finest’ of the later Poirot novels. Published in 1959 in Britain and the following year in the United States, Cat Among the Pigeons is set in ‘the best girls’ boarding school in England’, where Poirot is asked to present the prizes at Speech Day. The school, known as Meadowbank in the story, is said to have been based on the school that Dame Agatha’s daughter Rosalind attended as a young girl, Caledonia in Bexhill, East Sussex.
The novel was set in the 1950s, but the screenwriter – actor and writer Mark Gatiss, a member of the comedy writing and performing group The League of Gentlemen, and writer for the BBC’s Doctor Who – moved it back to the 1930s. That was always our practice in the films. From the very earliest days of the series, when Brian Eastman was the producer, it had been agreed that we would always locate the stories in the mid 1930s, to give the audience a sense of time and place which would never change.
It was one of the many reasons why the titles would always point out that our films were ‘based on’ Dame Agatha’s original stories. That also allowed us to alter the characters in some instances, and even – though rarely – to alter the motives of one or two of the suspects. In this case, it allowed us to have Poirot there from the very beginning of the story, rather than appearing almost halfway through, as he does in the original.
Directed by James Kent, and with another great cast, led by Harriet Walter as the school’s headmistress, Miss Gloria Bulstrode, it reminded me again of the status that the Poirot films had reached in the film and television industry in Britain. All the actors seemed to have a tremendous respect for the series – and reinforced the point that Michele Buck and Damien Timmer had made to me when they took over: ‘We want to make films.’ That was exactly what they had done.
The story of Cat Among the Pigeons is a touch gory – one mistress is killed with a javelin, for example. But the lasting impression that I took away from the shoot was that I was almost the only man in it. Anton Lesser did appear as Inspector Kelsey, the lead policeman, but otherwise the cast was almost entirely women. That meant that I was almost the only man in the summing up, speaking to a room crammed with ladies. It was a rather an odd experience, and not one that I had ever encountered before. The plot itself, however, was quite familiar territory for Dame Agatha, including jewels stolen from an Arab prince ousted in a revolution, a kidnapping that might not have been a kidnapping, and a possible impersonation – hence ‘cat among the pigeons’ – in a school in which nothing was what it seemed, and everyone had a secret.
There was then a gap in the filming, between November 2007 and the following spring, which I must say I was grateful for, as I had been so busy throughout the year. We did not start filming Poirot again until the following April, when we made The Third Girl, one of Dame Agatha’s very last Poirot stories, published in 1966. She had designed it to be a commentary on the ‘modern youth’ of the ‘swinging sixties’, but, as ever, our screenwriter, Peter Flannery, transposed the story back to the 1930s, and it lost none of its charm or ability to captivate with its complexity.
The film brought the return of the indefatigable Ariadne Oliver, whom Dame Agatha always allowed to reflect her own views on the ‘trade’ of being a crime novelist. In the original story, she even has her fictional alter ego complain about publishers. ‘I don’t believe you know whether anything I write is good or bad,’ she says, though neither lady would ever have dreamt of stopping writing for a single moment.
Directed by Dan Reed, and with a cast that included Peter Bowles, star of the famous BBC sitcom To the Manor Born, James Wilby and Haydn Gwynne, it was further evidence of the series’ power to attract the most talented actors. The cast were absolutely terrific, but Jemima Rooper, the young actress playing the leading lady, 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