Poirot and Me (45 page)

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 occasion.

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.