Poirot has been played by other actors before, of course, and will no doubt be played by other actors again. But when one watches Albert Finney in Murder on the Orient Express, whilst he is an entertaining screen presence, one can never quite get over the idea that this is someone giving a "performance" (and a rather mannered, hammy one at that). With every grimace and comical facial expression, not to mention an accent so thick it could have been turned into Belgian pate, he seems to be saying "Eee, look at me, a big burly chuffer in his thirties from Salford playing some funny foreign bugger!" Peter Ustinov, meanwhile, did a wonderful Peter Ustinov impersonation in six movies and TV movies in the late 1970s and 1980s, two of which (Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun) probably outdid the Suchet versions - Death on the Nile because it was so melodramatic and co-starred Angela Lansbury as a sort of perenially pissed version of Jessica Fletcher, Evil Under the Sun because it was just so deliciously camp (yes Roddy McDowall, I am looking at you in particular!) But David Suchet IS, WAS and probably ALWAYS WILL BE Poirot for me and millions of others, precisely because it doesn't feel like he is "acting". He effortlessly inhabits the role and achieves the colossal feat of making the silly walk, the slightly obsessive compulsive habits and the preposterous facial hair genuinely feel like a real person (at least as real as cosy Sunday night ITV ever gets).
He will be a tough act to follow. I was amused by one particularly idiotic message thread on imdb entitled "Is it time for a modern, basass representation of Hercule Poirot" which strikes me as being a bit like asking whether it is time for a modern, badass representation of Winnie the Pooh. That just isn't how Poirot works. I am not quite sure why people are always trying to push characters in that particular direction. No-one is ever saying "isn't it time for a more middle aged, sedentary representation of James Bond?", although if they are I would refer them to Roger Moore in A View to A Kill - by the time Rog made that one he was so ancient that viewers are on tenterhooks about whether he will even survive the process of baking a quiche (something he genuinely does in that film) let alone hanging from the Golden Gate bridge by his fingertips!
Where this idea comes from can be summarised in one word...Sherlock! But modernising Sherlock Holmes works because:
(a) it worked last time they tried it, with Basil Rathbone furiously battling Nazis and deteriorating scripts in the 1940s and somehow coming up on top in spite of both - old Basil was clearly lacing every line with boredom and contempt by the end of that run of films but fortunately that was sufficiently in character that nobody really minded (he did, after all, have to contend with living with Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson, who essentially played him as Baker Street's answer to Homer Simpson).
On the other hand, the 2000 TV modernisation of Murder on the Orient Express (with Alfred Molina) didn't really work - they tried to water down Poirot's eccentricities (an approach the producers of Sherlock thankfully didn't repeat), which took away much of the magic of the character, and they even gave him a girlfriend, which is just wrong on so many levels! Some of the Ustinov ones were also "modernisations" but those basically felt like episodes of Columbo, and one of them even featured a young, moustache-less and only "mostly bald" David Suchet as...Inspector Japp (watching this kind of makes you feel like you've wandered into a parallel universe).
(b) Sherlock Holmes was always running around, hot on the heels of his various "nemeses" in the first place and using the most modern technology at his disposal, whether that was in the 1890s, the 1940s or the present day - that is part of the essence of his character.
But Poirot is a different beast - with one exception (in Hallowe'en Party) where he actually takes it upon himself to give the murderer an almighty thwack with his iconic walking stick, his method of solving crimes is pretty unvarying. The Poirot guide to solving crimes:
Step one - hang around in the background making cryptic comments, focussing on minor trivial details and generally looking smug while the police are doing all the legwork.
Step two - wait for your good friend Japp to arrest the wrong person before unmasking the real killer, just so as to ensure that you make a total fool out of one of your oldest mates, who has done you the favour of not only giving you unlimited access to the scene of the crime despite your having no official standing or connection to the police, but has also let Captain Hastings hang around as well even though all he ever does is stand around looking vaguely lost and making inane comments like "Well I'll be jiggered!" whilst getting in everyone's way.
Step three - gather all of the suspects together in one room. Actually modern technology would help Poirot in this respect as nowadays most of them would have skype, meaning that he would not have to go through the awkward and arduous process of setting up these "denouement meetings in the drawing room" which must have been a logistical nightmare back in the thirties! They never show this bit on TV, but I imagine the conversations must go something like this:
Poirot: Allo, is that Colonel Mustard? Hercule Poirot speaks.
Col Mustard: Don't you mean "this is Hercule Poirot here?"
Poirot: Oui. Poirot, he can never get the hang of the English.
Col Mustard: Doesn't explain why you keep referring to yourself in the third person though, does it? People speaking French don't do that! Anyway, how long have you been living in the country now? Twenty years? And I've heard you spout all sorts of complicated speeches during the course of the investigation naming all manner of obscure poisons, yet you don't seem to have learned simple words or phrases like "yes", "no", "good" and "my friend". Shape up, man!
Poirot: To return to the point, s'il vous plait! What are you doing next Tuesday evening, monsieur?
Col Mustard: Goin' huntin'! Thought I'd bag a few pigeon!
Poirot: Ah that, it is reassuringly stereotypical, but also most irritating! Tuesday is the only evening all of the other suspects are free.
Col Mustard: Did you just call me a suspect?
Poirot: Mais oui.
Col Mustard: You've got a nerve, I must say. May I ask what sort of an event you're organising?
Poirot: I am gathering all those concerned in the murder together in the same room so that I can unmask the true killer.
Col Mustard: You mean you know who did it?
Poirot: Oui.
Col Mustard: And you haven't told the police?
Poirot: Well..non, not yet. But Chief Inspector Japp, he will also be there at the meeting next Tuesday.
Col Mustard: Japp? He's still on the force? Even though he arrested the wrong person in every single one of the last forty cases he worked on?
Poirot: Ah, but monsieur, you forget, he is the only Chief Inspector in the whole of Scotland Yard, which means that he has to investigate every single murder which happens in England, no matter where in the country it happens. He is very overworked!
Col Mustard: Well, you may have a point there. But why do you need everyone to be there?
Poirot: So that I can go around everyone in turn and insinuate that they are the killer before revealing who the real murderer is.
Col Mustard: What, even the victim's closest relatives? Isn't that a bit insensitive?
Poirot: Hercule Poirot, he is very thorough!
Col Mustard: Well anyway, I can't do next Tuesday so you'll just have to sort something else out.
Poirot: But that is impossible! This is the only day I can get everyone together in the next two months. The killer may have struck again by then!
Col Mustard: Well why don't you just call the police, tell them to arrest the real killer and have done with it!
Poirot: But that is ridiculous! I have memorised the twenty minute speech! And English, it is not my first language!
Col Mustard: What if the real killer brings a gun and just shoots you while you're warming up?
Poirot: Yes, it is curious that this it has never yet happened. Usually people start off by laughing, then calling me mad, but always Poirot manages to extract a badly acted confession from them at the end!
Col Mustard: You're mad!
Poirot: Yes I think on this occasion it is particularly important that you attend, monsieur!
Col Mustard: Well I'm still not coming so you'll have to do it without me!
Poirot: Are you determined to spoil my fun, monsieur?
[Poirot hangs up in disgust]
Poirot: Merde!
It's a strange formula, but one that has worked extremely well over the last twenty four years, give or take a dodgy episode or two.
Suchet's version of Orient Express took itself far too seriously and seemed to think it was The Life of David Gale (for the record I am not in favour of the death penalty in real life, but I am vigorously in favour of dealing out death and justice to fictional villains, and found Suchet's anguished touchy-feely handwringing in that episode virtually unwatchable!)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, whilst enjoyable, was ultimately another disappointment just because it fell so far short of the novel. I was so impressed by the twist in that particular book that I had a go at turning it into a stage play myself when I was eleven or twelve, and whilst, when I look back on it, I will freely admit the result was in no way a great work of literature (Roger Ackroyd himself is written as talking like a pirate for absolutely no reason!) I think that even at that tender young age I did a better job of concealing the murderer's identity than the TV adaptation where it is blindingly bleeding obvious who the murderer is from about ten minutes in.
Ultimately I think that the series has lost a little of its magic in recent years, losing some of the fun of the early episodes (not to mention the iconic opening credits, which is truly unforgivable) and his gang of sidekicks. There have still been some fun moments, but for true classic Poirot I would particularly recommend the feature length episodes from the early to mid 1990s. Hickory Dickory Dock might be a good starting point for novices, demonstrating that Poirot had an inkling that something might be up with Sgt Nicholas Brody long before the CIA started getting suspicious. Other famous names who started off on Poirot include Emily Blunt, Michael Fassbender and a pair of future "Doctors" in Christopher Eccleston and Peter Capaldi - I mention this because I know that this blog has an avid American audience and was surprised to discover how into Doctor Who they are across the pond now (when visiting the fantastic Magic Castle in LA in August, the fact that Cary Grant, Orson Welles and Johnny Depp were or had all been members at some point was treated with an overwhelming sense of "meh" by its members but they were all terribly excited by the fact that Matt Smith had come visiting the night before).
The final series of Poirot has proved to be a mixed bag so far. Dead Man's Folly was great fun, a really classic episode with all sorts of funny goings on in the countryside. The Big Four was less successful despite bringing back Japp, Hastings and Miss Lemon, but that was mainly because it was based on what may have been Christie's second silliest book (the silliest being Passenger to Frankfurt - plot overview from wikipedia gives you a flavour:
"Suddenly, Stafford has unwittingly entered a web of international intrigue, from which the only escape is to outwit the power-crazed Countess von Waldsausen who is hell-bent on world domination through the manipulation and arming of the planet's youth, which brings with it what promises to be a resurgence of Nazi domination."
The Labours of Hercules was not bad bearing in mind that it was an attempt to condense a book of twelve short stories into one feature length episodes (they basically chucked out eight of them and cherry picked the best bits from the remaining four, meaning that the producers' claim to have adapted every Poirot story is not 100% accurate). I liked the Alpine location, shame they didn't give Simon Callow a bit more to do.
And what of Curtain, the very last episode of all, which sees Poirot, crippled with arthritis, pursuing a serial killer and forced to reexamine the strict moral code to which he has adhered for so long. Truth be told, I'm not quite sure I can watch it. I'm not quite ready to say farewell to my favourite (fictional) Belgian just yet.
I suspect however that the series will go out on a high - the presence of Life on Mars's Philip Glenister on the list of suspects is a promising sign. Having said that, even better would have been a series-crossover in which Gene "I once hit a bloke for speaking French" Hunt himself (instead of playing host to various 2000s interlopers in his police station) is himself transported back in time to the 1930s to team up with Poirot. I think they'd have got on. Heaven knows there aren't enough "Odd Couple buddy movies" out there!
