Poirot and Me (20 page)

the life I’ve had – and the opportunity to

play such an extraordinary part?’

By then I had played Poirot thirty times in

thirty stories, including two two-hour

specials, a total of thirty-two hours of prime-

time television. What would happen next?

Chapter 9

‘YOU HAVE TO MAKE

SURE THAT NOTHING

GOES TO YOUR HEAD’

As the last Poirot episode I had filmed

was transmitted, all I knew for certain

was that London Weekend had not taken out

an option on me for another series. I looked

forward to playing him again but I was also

aware that my children were growing up and

I had to keep working. I had to try to make

sure I was available in case another Poirot

series was commissioned, but there was also

a life to be lived, and that meant working.

It was my uncertainty about the future,

and my need to work, that encouraged me

to accept what some of my friends thought

was a rather unlikely role – that of the

anarchist and spy Alfred Verloc in a new BBC

adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s dark Victorian

masterpiece The Secret Agent, which was

first published in 1907, but set in 1886.

The script was by the British playwright

Dusty Hughes and the director, another

Englishman, David Drury, had assembled a

terrific cast, including Cheryl Campbell, to

play my wife Winnie, Patrick Malahide as the

assistant commissioner of the Metro-politan

Police, and Warren Clarke as Chief Inspector

Heat, the detective bent on tracking down

the agent provocateur Verloc in London’s

East End.

Verloc was a milestone for me because it

was the first genuinely evil part that I had

played on television, and it was in the

starkest possible contrast to the endlessly

charming, if sometimes irritating, Poirot.

There was no disguising the fact that Verloc

was an evil man, intent on destroying

society, and that it would be hard for any

audience to find much affection for him. But

playing him provided me with a real

challenge: to bring to life one of European

literature’s most malignant souls without

turning him into a monster with a tail and

horns. Indeed, in spite of the material, I

never once allowed myself to be depressed

by his character, no matter how despicable

he might be. I knew that Verloc was an

opportunity to show myself to the audience

in a different light, and that meant a great

deal to me.

By now I was forty-five years old, a time

when most people are pretty settled in their

lives and career. They have a house and

children, as I did, and, if they are lucky, they

also have a fairly predictable future. But no

actor has that luxury – certainly not one

determined to make a career out of being a

character actor, as I was. I had known for a

long time that I had to be more flexible than

that, and take the chances I was offered. But

I could not have managed that without

Sheila’s support, because she understood –

having been an actress herself – exactly

what an actor’s lifestyle meant. It was

always a rollercoaster, with neither of us

knowing what was to come next.

That’s the life you join as an actor, and it

was one reason why Sheila and I trained

ourselves never to look more than six

months into the future – if things went badly,

we were always ready to make a change to

our lives. It was a thought that sustained us

through the good times as well as the bad. If

things went badly, we always told each

other, we would sell the house and move

into something smaller, or even move back

into a narrow boat on the canals, which is

where we started our life together. It was an

attitude that meant we were always ready to

drop everything at a moment’s notice if the

right chance came up, no matter where it

took us.

I had decided, however, that there was

one thing I really could not do while Poirot

remained a possibility – and that was to go

back to work with the Royal Shakespeare

Company at Stratford. But the decision upset

me for I loved the company. In fact, I was

lucky enough to be asked to rejoin them

almost every year, even for just one

production, but I knew that making that

commitment would demand a long period of

my time, and it would also mean that I

would not be available for another Poirot

series if one was recommissioned. Not going

to the RSC was the right thing to do, but it

was very hard to refuse my friends there,

especially the principal associate director

Michael Attenborough, who was always

trying, very gently, to persuade me to go

back to a company I had always treasured.

But even though I turned down the RSC,

the decision did not depress me, because I

have always been a very positive person.

I’ve always felt enormously fortunate to be

an actor, but I have also realised that you

need to keep your feet firmly on the ground

if you are. You have to make sure that

nothing goes to your head – not even the

greatest reviews. And I also believe that the

higher you go up the ladder of success, the

more certain it is that one day it might just

stop. My philosophy was to choose what I

did very carefully, and always to do the best

and most challenging work that I could, and

see where that took me.

Yet beneath all that, I also knew that I

wanted to go on playing Poirot. Some of my

friends would ask, ‘Haven’t you had enough

of him?’

But I would always tell them, ‘The public

love him, and the truth is, I do too.’

That made the uncertainty about whether

I would play him again all the more testing,

but there were consolations – not least the

extraordinary fan letters that I had received

since Agatha Christie’s Poirot began. I had

been used to one or two bits of fan mail in

the past, but suddenly a tidal wave of letters

overtook me, and they came as a

considerable shock. They really did.

Those letters made me realise that I had a

responsibility to the audience to keep up the

quality of everything I did on the series, to

surround myself with the very best people

and the finest scripts. It was something I had

tried to do throughout my career, but now it

became even more important. I simply could

not let the letter-writers down, and so I

replied to them all, and found myself taking

on a part-time secretary to help.

The letters came from all sorts of people,

and each and every one of them was

touching in its own way. Mind you, it did not

entirely escape my attention that the

majority of them came from women.

One elderly lady of almost ninety years of

age, who lived alone, wrote to thank me for

making her Sunday evenings a treat. She

told me she drew her dining table up in front

of her television set before each episode, so

that she could have supper with me.

Then a young woman in her twenties

wrote to ask me if I would come and meet

her in a park one day, dressed as Poirot, so

that she could know what it would be like to

be treated like a lady. I am afraid I declined

the invitation, but it revealed just how much

Poirot meant to everyone that watched him.

One lady from Northern Ireland wrote to

tell me that she had never before watched

films that included Poirot because he had

always seemed a little unbelievable to her,

and a little repellent.

She told me that it was only because she

had seen my Caliban for the RSC at Stratford

that she had even turned on her television

set to watch the Poirot series. To her

amazement, she found him a credible

character. She told me that she could see

the person shining through, and asked me

whether this was the fascination of acting.

Deeply moved, I replied to her letter,

though I am far from certain whether I

answered her question. In fact, I am not

altogether sure if I could define exactly what

the fascination of acting is, beyond that I

love doing it.

Another lady, this time from Scotland, said

she had felt compelled to write to

congratulate me on my portrayal, and went

into considerable detail about exactly why.

She explained that she had always

considered Poirot to be such a unique and

complex character that it was impossible to

bring him to life without turning him into

some kind of music-hall turn. She was kind

enough to tell me that, for her, my

performance had come as a great surprise

and a great relief. To know that these

members of the audience had understood

what I had been trying to do was

tremendously heartening.

Not all the letters were from ladies.

One gentleman from Rhode Island in the

United States confessed, ‘I have not had

much experience in writing fan letters, so

please excuse the awkwardness of this

letter. I just want you to know that you have

many fans in America. I am happy to say I

am one of them . . . but I am not an

impressionable young girl, or a yuppie or

some groupie. I am a sixty-four-year-old

black American, a former postal worker now

retired . . . a happily married man of thirty-

nine years, to my first and only love. Father

of three children – two boys and a girl – and

last, but not least, a grandfather of ten.’

This delightful gentleman particularly liked

Poirot’s banter with Hastings – and

especially over our game of Monopoly – just

as he enjoyed his impatience with the other

guests during the denouement in Peril at End

House, which he called ‘vintage Poirot’. But

what he admired the most was the single

fact that had preoccupied me the most:

distilling the true humanity of the little man

into my performance.

‘No one has so captured the essence of

Poirot as you have,’ he wrote. ‘Even though

you reveal his vanity, his conceits, he is in

some ways a ridiculous little man, you still,

like no [other] actor convey his sweetness,

his innate kindness and his tenacity. It is just

wonderful.’ He ended by wishing me ‘much

success in your future’ and concluded with a

sentence that touched my heart. ‘I hope that

my letter means something to you.’ It most

certainly did.

The letter that meant the most to me,

however, did not come from a fan but from

Rosalind Hicks, Dame Agatha’s daughter,

who had subjected me to that ordeal when

we had met for lunch back in the summer of

1988, before the first series had even started

filming, when she reminded me firmly that

we must never laugh at Poirot – only with

him.

‘Dear “Poirot”,’ she was kind enough to

write. ‘Your appearance and mannerisms,

the warmth and humour and occasional

touches of impatience and fussiness – it is all

just right . . . Agatha Christie’s Poirot, you

certainly are. I’m sure she would have been

delighted.

‘The order and method and the little grey

cells are all there to see. The moustaches

could have been a little more magnificent,

but I do understand what you feel about this

sensitive point!’ She ended by saying simply,

‘With many thanks and congratulations from

us both.’

It brought back the memory of my terror

that my Poirot might not match the ideal she

had in mind. It was an enormous relief to

hear that it did.

I think Rosalind Hicks’ support for me may

have been one of the factors – as well as the

audience figures in this country and the

show’s success in the United States – that

finally persuaded London Weekend to go on

with a fourth series. After all, they were

perfectly within their rights to stop, but – to

their eternal credit – they did not. The