by David Suchet
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 have received from our team of writers over the years. Each and every one has helped me to give Poirot depth and complexity for the television audience, which has made a difference to the way in which the world views the little Belgian.
I think we have expanded on Poirot’s moral faith, which takes him beyond a secular society; explored his particular sense of isolation, which sets him apart from others around him; allowed him to look wistfully at lovers, aware that they have something which has been missing from his life; brought his passion to control the world as a way of controlling his own life to the fore; and – perhaps most of important of all – allowed his intuition to reveal itself. His ‘little grey cells’ are important to him, of course, but his ability to intuit exceeds even their importance, for, as Poirot puts it himself, ‘I listen to what you say, but I hear what you mean.’
What no one can ignore in this most beautiful part of the Devon countryside is that this is the end of an era. That feeling grows stronger and stronger among the crew on these last days of shooting. There is wistfulness in the air, even though no one else here at Greenway this week has been there since the beginning in 1988 – except for my driver Sean and me. But there is also happiness, and a sense of achievement in helping Poirot through some of his most difficult moments.
Now, finishing the final film, I know I was right to film Dead Man’s Folly last. It is infinitely better that he should remain alive in my memory as we shoot the final scenes in the summer sunshine outside Dame Agatha’s house. Filming with Poirot alive as we finish brings a feeling of exultation at his memory. That is what Poirot would have wanted, what Dame Agatha would have wanted, and that is what we have managed to do. He is alive in all our minds at the end: a man that can never truly die.
There are so many moments that stick in my mind. On the Wednesday after we arrive, for example, I speak my very last words as Poirot on film: and they are incredibly mundane.
Poirot asks Ariadne Oliver whose idea it was to hold a ‘murder hunt’ at the fete that is the centre of the story.
‘The Warburtons’, I think,’ she replies.
There is no great, dramatic monologue to mark my end as Poirot. He simply says, ‘The owners of this property?’
Those are my very last lines to camera.
Early that evening, I celebrate that moment privately with every member of the crew of seventy or so, from the assistant directors to the designers, from the costume and make-up ladies to the camera department, from the props boys to the sound team. I buy some bottles of Champagne and we sit in the dining tent that we have erected in the garden of Dame Agatha’s house, toasting her memory and the final series.
There are strong emotions among each and every one of us as I stand beside Sean and look across at the many friends I have made over the years, not least my stand-in, Peter Hale, who has been there with me for the past fourteen years. Any series of films makes a family of the crew who help to make them, but this series has been particularly special because it marks the end for an exceptional character.
After the small party for the crew, I go inside Greenway itself for dinner in Dame Agatha’s own dining room, with her grandson, Mathew Prichard, and he is kind and generous. It brings back memories for me of the lunch I had all those years ago – before I had even made my first film as Poirot – with his mother Rosalind and her husband Anthony Hicks, where they warned me that the audience must never laugh at Poirot, only with him. I think I have managed to do that. I truly hope so.
Later that night, Sheila arrives from London to spend the final day’s filming with me, and we say to each other what an extraordinary journey it has been for us both. It was one which we never knew, from year to year, whether it would ever continue. We were always on tenterhooks. But when this episode finishes, it will be the first time in my life when I won’t have to wait to be told whether or not we are going to be filming Poirot again. We will have finished, and I am sixty-seven. We started when I was forty-two. It is half my adult lifetime.
To say that this is going to be a relief is an understatement, because Sheila knows only too well just how much the uncertainty about whether or not there would ever be a new series cost me year after year. This final film means that the stress has slipped quietly away. There never will be another series with me playing Poirot, not after tomorrow.
Sitting quietly alone together, Sheila and I also ask each other what exactly it is that makes Poirot so special to so many millions of people around the world. After a little thought, we agree that our son-in-law, Elliott, Katherine’s husband, summed it up beautifully when he explained to us not long ago that what makes Poirot so appealing, enduring and timeless as a man is that he possesses one of the finest and clearest moral compasses of any fictional character. Somehow, Elliott explains, we would all like to be him, to have his clarity and moral strength. Sheila and I agree: that lies at the very heart of his appeal.
The final day dawns bright and sunny, but with barely a breath of wind, and the still air brings a kind of languor to Greenway and its gardens. The crew have no need of me in the morning, because they are filming on the river, and so I am free to do some press interviews to support the final series. That means that Sean does not collect Sheila and me from our hotel until after eleven, and we do not get to my trailer at Greenway until just before noon. I don’t have to change into my costume yet – that can wait until lunch. We just have to film two scenes of my walking down to the boathouse and then up to the house again.
In the middle of the afternoon, the camera crew come back up from the river, while I am in make-up, and begin to set up outside Greenway. They know, and so does everyone there, that this really is the end, and everyone seems intent to shake my hand and hug me to mark the occa
sion.
By the time I am getting into my costume late that afternoon, however, the weather has changed. There are now rain clouds in the air as I watch Sian Turner Miller, my make-up lady, stick on my moustache in the trailer, hidden away behind the walls of Greenway’s great vegetable garden, complete with its own greenhouse, one that Poirot would have been proud to use for his marrows.
Then, as I walk out in front of Greenway for the final scenes, a large crowd has gathered, mostly made up of the crew, but there are also visitors and tourists who have come to admire Dame Agatha’s house. Most of them had no idea that filming was going on, nor that this was Poirot’s final day. They just happened upon the unit, and me.
Once again, I find myself wondering – just before the director shouts, ‘Action’ – whether I am Poirot or David Suchet in this most unreal of moments. But there are no tears in my eyes as I walk down towards the boathouse, nor are there any when I walk back up, open the front door of Greenway and go inside.
It is just before five o’clock on Thursday 28 June 2013 when Tom Vaughan, the director, shouts, ‘Cut.’
Then, when I step outside Greenway again, there is a huge round of applause as Marcus Catlin, the first assistant director on the shoot, announces, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a wrap for Poirot.’ He pauses: ‘After twenty-five years.’
People are clapping and crying as I walk across the front porch of the house and raise my arms aloft to thank them. Then my tears come. I cannot stop them. This is the end of something that I have lived with for half my life, the culmination of a dream that has lasted years, the pinnacle of what I had worked towards for so long.
The rain drizzles down on us, but no one minds or moves. Mathew Prichard, in a brief speech, calls it ‘an historic moment’ and then generously explains how sure he is that his grandmother would have approved of my Poirot. Then Michelle Buck, one of the executive producers who helped to transform the films, makes a brief speech of her own, in which she admits, ‘We’ve pulled off something that we did not think was possible.’
Now it is my turn. But I do not speak as me. I speak in Poirot’s own unmistakeable Belgian accent and thank everyone for their support, even ‘David Suchet, who zinks he knows me.’
I tell the crew that Poirot is always there to help if they need him. ‘You know ze telephone number. It is Trafalgar 8137.’
Then I pause: ‘But most of all, to you all, au revoir and merci beaucoup!’
My mind went back to Poirot’s last moments of life in Curtain, which we filmed all those months ago, because here I am again saying farewell to a cher ami for the last time.
Index
The ABC Murders 128–9, 145–6
Abraham, F. Murray 183
acting career, uncertainty of 122–3
adaptations, reactions of fans to 140
The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly 57–8
The Adventure of the Cheap Flat 84, 85, 197
The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding 114, 116, 139
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook 44–50, 52–5, 64, 68
The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb 137–8, 148
The Adventure of the Italian Nobleman 140
The Adventure of the Royal Ruby 115–16, 116, 118
The Adventure of the Western Star 85–6
The Affair at the Victory Ball 118–19
After the Funeral 224–5, 227–8
Agatha Christie: Poirot 204, 221
Agran, Linda 72
Agutter, Jenny 233
Albee, Edward 176, 177
see also Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Alibi 187–8
All My Sons 245, 267
Allingham, Margery 276
Amadeus 22, 183–4, 185, 190–1
American audiences 106, 125–6, 127, 145–6
Andrews, Guy 223, 232, 245, 246, 276–7
Appointment with Death 240, 241, 245–6, 247, 251, 252
Art Deco style 61, 194, 230, 231
Arts & Entertainment network 185, 192, 203
Atkins, Eileen 261
Bacall, Lauren 17
Baeza, Paloma 200
The Bank Job 238–9
Barber, Frances 82
Barber-Fleming, Peter 139
Barker, Ronnie 39, 41
Barnes, Clive 191
Bate, Anthony 83
Bateman, Geoffrey 57
BBC 3, 13, 15, 18, 31, 42, 50, 80, 87, 115, 121, 129, 157, 166–7, 197, 198, 206
Bennett, Edward 46, 53, 54, 58, 164
Bergman, Ingrid 17
Berry, Halle 175
The Big Four 230, 274–6
Biggers, Earl Derr 84
Billington, Michael 155, 184, 268
Bingo 71, 109
Blood Will Tell 240
Blott on the Landscape 13, 15, 68, 129, 179, 180
Blunt, Emily 216
Bogarde, Dirk 142
Bond, Edward 71
Bond, Samantha 85, 197
Bonham Carter, Helena 202
Bonneville, Hugh 262
Bowen, Elizabeth 233
Bowles, Peter 244
Boyle, Zoe 247
Brady, Orla 277
Brantley, Ben 191
Brayfield, Celia 105
Britton, Tony 200
Bruce, Nigel 48
Brydon, Rob 200
Buck, Michele 204, 205, 206, 226, 230, 243, 289–90
budgets 50, 83, 207, 266
Bullmore, Amelia 256
Burden, Suzanne 62
Burgh Island Hotel 194
Burke, David 253
Burke, Tom 253
Burr, Raymond 22
Burton, Richard 176
Calder-Marshall, Anna 225, 253
Callow, Simon 183, 277
Campbell, Cheryl 121, 200, 246
Capaldi, Peter 111, 112
capital punishment 257–8
The Capture of Cerberus 277
Cards on the Table 228–9, 231–2
Carlyle, Robert 235
Carman, Dominic 201
Carman, Frances 201
Carman, George 201
The Case of the Missing Will 140
Cat Among the Pigeons 242–4, 246, 250
Catchpole, Charlie 220
Catlin, Marcus 289
Chamberlain, Richard 22
Chancellor, Anna 142, 143
character acting 20–2, 29, 68, 82, 108
Charles, Prince of Wales 203
Charlie Chan mysteries 83–4
Chastain, Jessica 262
The Chocolate Box 141–3, 144
Chopin, Frederic 3–4
Chorion 203
Christie, Agatha
alter ego see Oliver, Ariadne
best-selling novelist 24
CBE award 278
death of 25
divorce 188, 223
early life 92–3
eleven-day disappearance 222
familiar plot devices 100, 129, 143, 144, 193, 261
first describes Poirot 99
leaves clues in plain sight 63, 80, 99–100
marries Archibald Christie 93
marries Max Mallowan 188
plot repetitions 80
‘tires’ of Poirot 24, 229, 240–1, 270
wartime nursing experiences 93
writes first Poirot story 93–4
writes last Poirot story 272
Christie, Archibald 93, 188, 223
Christie, Campbell 274
Cilento, Diane 17
Clarke, Warren 122
class system, English 64, 89–90
Clegg, Tom 192
Clement, Dick 238–9
The Clocks 253–4, 267
Coady, Matthew 271
cold case investigation 207, 273
Cole, Stephanie 115–16
Complicit 251–2
Connery, Sean 17, 42
Coren, Alan 70
The Cornish Mystery 84
Courtenay, Tom 235
Craig, Bill 1
39
Crane, Roger 239
Cranham, Kenneth 197
critical reception of Poirot productions 68, 69–70, 103–4, 105, 106, 148, 173, 219–20, 221, 250
Critics’ Circle Award 178, 191
Cruel Train 166–7
Crutchley, Rosalie 142–3
The Curious Disappearance of the Opalsen Pearls 143
Curry, Tim 245–6
Curtain: Poirot’s Final Case 1–9, 12, 25, 191, 206, 241, 263, 265, 269–72, 273
Curtis, Tony 254
Cusack, Niamh 64
Cusack, Sinéad 279
Davies, Andrew 198
Davies, Howard 176, 267
de la Tour, Frances 216
Dead Man’s Folly 278–81, 284–90
Dead Man’s Mirror 143
Dear, Nick 214, 231–2, 241, 254, 272, 279
Death in the Clouds 129–31, 157
Death on the Nile 206, 214–16, 220–1, 252, 257, 271, 277
denouments 59–60, 64, 79, 80, 83, 85, 101, 118, 119, 126, 226–7
Dermot Walsh, Elizabeth 210
Devenish, Ross 92, 98, 99, 131–2
Dial M for Murder 180
Digby, Anne-Marie 6
The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim 86, 87
Doctor Who 2, 111, 132, 243
Dodd, Ken 201
Donaldson, Roger 239
Double Clue 113–14, 277
Double Sin 82, 84, 85
Douglas, Michael 180, 181, 202
Doyle, Arthur Conan 27
see also Sherlock Holmes stories
Dracula 104
Draper, Ruth 189
The Dream 64, 65
Dreyfuss, Richard 251
Driver, Minnie 166
Drury, David 121
du Maurier, Gerald 188, 255
Dumb Witness 164–5, 173
Dunbar, Adrian 166
Duncan, Lindsay 223, 224
Eastman, Brian 15, 16, 17–18, 19, 26, 28, 33, 34, 36, 37, 54, 61, 63, 65, 67–8, 72, 73, 118, 127, 130, 157, 159, 161, 163, 184, 185, 186, 203–4, 205–6, 243
Eccleston, Christopher 132, 189
Edinburgh, Prince Philip, Duke of 116–17, 118
Edwardian grandeur 100
Edwardian manners 37