Poirot and Me: An evening with David Suchet 10/12/13 review

Last night I attended the Poirot and Me: An evening with David Suchet author event with my friend Jacky.  It was at The Royal Hall in Harrogate, starting at 7.30pm and it was sold out and part of the Harrogate International Festivals www.harrogateinternationalfestivals.com

David Suchet was interviewed by Geoffrey Wansell, with whom he co-wrote his newly released book Poirot and Me.

Hercule Poirot is watched in more than 100 countries and is the longest running TV series.  Through his television performance in ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot, David Suchet has become inextricably linked with the 'little Belgian.'

Geoffrey first met David 25 years ago on the Isle of Scilly, just after David had been offered the role.  David had spent 13/14 years in the Royal Shakespeare Company and after Blot on the Landscape, had returned to the classics again.  David admitted that when the producer asked him about the role he had not read the books but he had played Inspector Japp in the Peter Ustinov movie.  He rang his brother John Suchet, who thought it was a joke as Poirot was not a classical role and advised him against taking it, which David feels just goes to prove that you should never listen to your older sibling.

David made 93 notes on the characteristics of the Belgian detective when he read the books because he believes that there is a great deal of difference between a playwright and a novelist and that being an actor is the only way to give a character a voice from a book with a sense of the writers version.

Geoffrey pointed out that the voice for the role may have been a problem, as everyone thinks he is French but he is Belgian.  French people thought he was French, so he listened to English-speaking  French radio, Dutch and Belgian radio and put them together to get the voice.  Agatha Christie had said that Poirot is a walking brain, so that is where David feels his voice is.

Geoffrey then mentioned that if the voice was a problem, the walk was more so.  David laughed and said that he had a film test for Poirot and a couple of weeks before he read that 'Poirot crossed the street with his usual rapid mincing gait with his feet tightly enclosed in his patent leather boots.'  He had heard that Laurence Olivier had a trick, an old penny squeezed and held tightly between his buttocks.  David revealed that 25 years of doing that is really hard work.

Rosalind Hicks, Agatha Christie's daughter and her husband, met David Suchet for what he thought was a celebratory lunch, but he was on the menu being grilled.  Agatha Christie and her family believed that Poirot is not a caricature and he agreed that they wanted him to not be a buffoon, they wanted to smile with him not laugh at him. Later they revealed to him that of all the versions of Poirot, his was one that her mother would have very much approved.

David has come to protect him, e.g. directors who would not see the role in his way and he added that the compassion for every class, so that people immediately feel they are in safe hands, is what comes across most about his character.  Being an outsider, Poirot becomes an everyman to the below stairs who he would treat kindly and gave Christie the chance have slight digs at the upper class.  David feels that Poirot loves people, so he embellished this as he uses this to find out what he reads in people to come to solutions to the crimes.  To be listened to properly is generous, as Poirot says 'I will listen to what you say but hear what you mean.'

He has received fantastic fan letters.  He got one from a late 80s widow, who would move her dining table up towards the television and have her supper with him.  He also had a young lady who wished to meet him, dressed as Poirot, in a park to spend an hour with him on her arm in order to feel what it felt like to be treated as a lady.  Once he had a little old lady in Hastings, who when he was hot and tired after a long shoot and he was standing in the street on his own and relaxing, came towards him with a shopping trolley who addressed him as Poirot.  He had a quandary now, as what did should he do?  She thought he was Poirot and he didn't want to disappoint her, so he went back into character to talk to her.  She was so worried that he was there because he was on a case and that there had been a murder, so he told her that he was on his 'vacances.'  She was so relieved she walked away, then she turned around and thanked him for choosing Hastings.  Geoffrey felt that this was a testament to his acting in that he has the capacity to convince people you are real and not an actor.

David feels that Poirot, when he has a moral dilemma like in Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express, it would affect him as Poirot is a compassionate catholic with a conscience.  His faith is a huge part of who he is, his world view.  He feels it is his duty to his God to rid the world of crime where he exists.  But when the person a murderer murders deserves it, or the murderer wants releasing his compassion would make him want to, but as a catholic and a detective, he knows he must not.  David tried to convey this with a scene in Murder on the Orient Express where he is smoking a tiny Russian cigarette and the shot starts on the rosary, then travels up to his face and he smokes the cigarette.

He feels he has not been typecast as initially the role was ten one hour slot stories with a further option for ten more, so he just carried on with his career.  Every 18 months he would not know if he was doing Poirot, so he would be able to do his plays.  He never got bored with playing him and it kept him fresh as he looked forward to becoming him again. If he had been asked in 1988 when he was cast for a 25 year contract, he doesn't know what would have happened, he probably would have turned it down.

David filmed the last five stories of Poirot out of order, he filmed the last one first and then the other four, which he felt was a lovely way to say goodbye to him.  His death was hard to play; he dies and commits murder on the way.  The book 'Curtain' was written during the WII so that Agatha could provide for her family if she died in an air raid.  Her publishers wouldn't allow it to be published as they wanted more, and it was finally published in 1975.  She died in 1976.  In the book the real murderer is the one who used psychology to make them do it, so he takes matters into his own hands.  So he is now a murderer but is also sick and as a catholic and a politician, when he has a hug angina attack he reaches for his rosary rather than his pills to let himself die.  His last words are 'Forgive me' to his God and David does not feel that Poirot would be happy to make that decision.  David still hasn't got over the end of Poirot, as he feels they have been friends for 25 years.  It will always be on ITV3 he joked, but he doubted that they will show the last one very much.

He revealed that he was once on the tube on the Met line in packed rush hour, when he heard 'Oh that's Poirot' as a woman ran down the carriage and squeezed in to the bench seat beside him.  She was a nun who explained to the whole train who he was and he was quite embarrassed.  She explained that she had just come out of a vow of silence and that when lights go out, they are not allowed to watch television, but that 'he is our blue movie.'

Geoffrey asked David what he thought Poirot would think of David Suchet.  He thinks 'he is a fine actor but bleugh.  He can portray and imitate, but nobody can be Hercule Poirot because he is the best, most famous and humble detective.' 

They both revealed that they have spent a month signing books for people and had a couple yesterday in Guilford who confessed that every night before they went to bed they watched a Poirot.  At a Royal Lancaster Hotel signing for 2 hours then lunch and when he visited the facilities before lunch, he was washing his hands and when he put his paper towel in the bin, he noticed that one of the books he had just signed was in it; he even remembered which man it was he'd signed it for.

There was an interval followed by a half an hour for questions, ahead of the book signing, where the audience found out (amongst other things) that ABC murder is David's favourite Poirot book; he got to keep the walking stick (there are two and the other is in the Torquay Museum) but he doesn't use it, for fear of losing it; the make-up normally took an hour and a quarter, but for Curtain, he had make-up to give him arthritic hands which took an hour for each hand; Poirot falls in love in Double Clue and that Miss Lemon is devastated but he would not see it because he would not see it in anyone; sometimes Poirot drives him crazy as he would probably be called OCD in this day and age; his favourite attire for Poirot that he fought for as it's in the book (he said that if he didn't wear it he wouldn't play the part, as a certain person didn't want it as they thought it was boring), is the black jacket, grey waistcoat and morning suit trousers like a Harley Street surgeon (like his own Dad); David recommended to any budding actors that they should only accept jobs about which you feel passion for and that of all the villains Poirot outwitted, his favourite is Norton in Curtain as he is not the obvious one, the last one he books and the cleverest of them all.

#HerculePoirot  #DavidSuchet  #Poirot