Suchet remains in character between takes, in an attempt to inhabit the character as fully as he can, and in his new book, Poirot and Me, he admits that it became hard, at times, to know where the mustachioed detective ended and where he began. (Christie pedants are welcome to quibble that one very short story, the Lemesurier Inheritance, and the posthumous Capture of Cerberus, went unfilmed.) Morse, which seemed to run forever, actually consisted of only 33 episodes: when Curtain airs, Suchet will have completed the entire Poirot canon, committing 70 novels and short stories to camera. But none can claim the longevity of Suchet's Poirot. Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes has his champions, while my mother maintains that Miss Marple should have been officially retired from the television after Joan Hickson's definitive depiction. John Thaw did it with Inspector Morse Raymond Burr did it with Perry Mason.

He is, of course, a little leaner than his famous TV creation – that famous silhouette is 50% padding – and his voice is far deeper he is capable of an expansive, carrying laugh that would doubtless raise a disapproving eyebrow from his fictional counterpart.Ī few actors have become, like Suchet, the living embodiment of a literary detective. And this is his.'Įven without the luxurious moustache and the perfectly brushed homburg, Suchet is unmistakable, dressed tidily in a blue shirt, a wine-coloured waistcoat and dark jeans. And I will miss him from my life until I die. 'I haven't fully mourned him yet,' says Suchet gently. Today, as Suchet looks out on a grey, mizzly skyline from the 14th floor of ITV's studios on Southbank, the city is in a suitably sombre mood. In the final series of dramas, surrounded by their typically acute period detail, Poirot is ageing, and there is one more death that we know he cannot escape. He has unravelled the Mysterious Affair at Styles.

Death on the nile with david suchet