Poirot

On the Rust many of us have our pet television programmes to see us through lockdown. Ivan dotes on University Challenge where tonight the semi-final is contested.

I am watching Poirot faithfully every weekday evening on ITV3. My late mother was a devotee but I cannot recall watching the series that attracted 100 million viewers worldwide.

There have been many screen Poirots but David Suchet has made the role his own.

That fine actor Charles Laughton was the first.

Then an actor called Austin Trevor, unfamiliar to me.

Then in the seventies you had those big budget, box office, galaxy of stars films like Murder On The Orient Express – when Albert Finney played the Belgian detective-  and Death On the Nile when Peter Ustinov assumed the role.

That was on television yesterday afternoon with a cast of Bette Davis, David Niven and Mia Farrow.

Sadly  it did not do it for me.

John Malkavich appeared as Poirot in the ABC Murders.

He portrayed Poirot as victimised by racism. I suspect it will not be long before Poirot and Captain Hastings  are cast as lovers.

Kenneth Branagh has also had a go and this year appears in a remake of Murder On The Orient Express.

That David Suchet has got under and into the skin of Poirot is due to his attentive study of the mannerisms of the detective down to the meticulously dapper dress, the quizzical expression often providing an early clue and the mannered walk.

Hastings (Hugh Fraser) is his Watson and Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson) the comic police officer with a long flappy raincoat and tendency to get the wrong end of the stick.

It’s both formal and formulaic.

The cast dress in black tie for dinner and the big reveal comes at the end with all present. I can usually guess the murderer but the trick is to watch carefully the scene of crime.

Vive Poirot!