Poirot and Me (37 page)

marvellous actor Alex Jennings, who I

believe could become a theatrical star to

rival the late Sir John Gielgud. But it was my

relationship with Zoë, and Poirot’s with

Ariadne, that seemed to overshadow almost

everything else. We were on the screen

together even before the titles appeared,

and never looked back.

Cards on the Table is one of Dame

Agatha’s most original crimes, which our

script reflected, with a denouement that is

beautifully devised – even though, as she

explains at the start of her novel, the

murderer is one of only four suspects.

Deepening the audience’s understanding

of Poirot’s character took another step

forward in the fourth and last of this tenth

series of films, Taken at the Flood , which

was published in both Britain and the United

States in 1948. Originally set in post-war

Britain, where the delight of victory in

Europe has been overshadowed by austerity,

we decided to set it in the 1930s. But it

would be fair to say that it still reflects its

origins in those difficult years after the

Second World War. There is a sense of

sadness in it, and it takes its title from

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, from Brutus’s

speech in Act IV: ‘There is a tide in the

affairs of men, / Which, taken at the flood,

leads on to fortune.’

The story, and our film version of it,

reveals yet another of Poirot’s psychological

qualities: his moral beliefs, and, in particular,

his Catholicism, which the screenwriter Guy

Andrews brought out in his script. I had

always

known

that

Poirot’s

religious

convictions were intensely strong, and,

indeed, had added this to my list of notes on

his character so many years before. He read

from his prayer book and Bible every night

before he went to bed with his hot

chocolate, and held his rosary while he was

doing so.

For me, an essential part of what made

Poirot the man he was lay in his conviction

that God had put him on this earth so that

he could rid the world of evil. That was the

raison d’être at the heart of every single one

of his actions. As the films had developed, so

my conviction that this was the case had

grown even stronger. It was to reach its

height in Murder on the Orient Express, in

which Poirot is faced with a terrible moral

dilemma, but it is also very clear in Taken at

the Flood, where Poirot confronts his attitude

to abortion and is seen praying with his

rosary in his hand. It is one of the most

striking moments in the film.

The production was based at Shepperton

Studios, with Andy Wilson as the director,

and another great cast, including Jenny

Agutter, Celia Imrie and Nicholas Le Prevost.

There was also Tim Woodward, son of

Edward, and, of course, David Yelland as

George, to look after the new Whitehaven

Mansions flat. The story once again focuses

on a battle over a will carried out in an

English country house.

Indeed, the house in Dame Agatha’s

original story was based on Warmsley Heath,

Archie and Dame Agatha’s house near

Sunningdale golf course, which did not hold

the happiest of memories for her, which may

help to account for some of the darkness in

the story and our film. In a review of the

novel,

the

writer

Elizabeth

Bowen

complimented Dame Agatha by saying, ‘Her

gift for blending the cosy with the macabre

has seldom been more evident than it is

here.’ It was a quality that was certainly

reflected in our film.

During the filming, I was asked to

contribute to one of those ‘behind the

scenes’ documentaries, which was to appear

on the DVD when it was released. I greatly

enjoyed doing that, and I confessed to the

interviewer that 2005 had been ‘my happiest

year of all’ on Poirot, and I meant it. The

little man and I had revealed to one another

a depth and companionship that was very

special indeed.

Chapter 16

‘WHY-WHY-WHY DID I

EVER INVENT THIS

DETESTABLE,

BOMBASTIC, TIRESOME

LITTLE CREATURE!’

No sooner had I finished Taken at the

Flood, in the autumn of 2005, the last

of Dame Agatha’s Poirot stories in the tenth

series, than I was in rehearsals for Moss Hart

and George Kaufman’s great 1930s comedy

Once in a Lifetime, at the National Theatre

in London. And just as I had done twenty-six

years before at the Royal Shakespeare

Company, I was playing the grotesque, but

hugely

funny,

movie-mogul

Herman

Glogauer. It was about as far away from

Poirot as it was possible to imagine. There I

was, brandishing massive cigars, wearing the

loudest

and

most

vulgar

suits

and

swaggering all over the stage. It was

tremendous fun.

In fact, the following year, 2006, was to be

an interesting year for me. Immediately after

I finished at the National, I made a television

movie for ITV called The Flood, about a

storm surge in the Thames that threatened

to overwhelm London, alongside Robert

Carlyle and Sir Tom Courtenay. Filmed in

South Africa, and crammed with special

effects, I was playing the Deputy Prime

Minister, in charge of the crisis because the

Prime Minister was out of the country – just

part of a character actor’s life, you might

say.

But then I went on to participate in a

project that truly touched my heart. I was

invited to make a documentary about

animals facing extinction, and was asked

which one I would like to choose. There was

not a moment’s doubt in my mind – I wanted

to make a film about the threat to the

existence of giant pandas. As an animal

lover, they have always held a special place

in my heart, and I have always been

horrified by how precarious their existence

has always seemed to be. The Chinese

emperors of the past considered them so

magical that they kept them in their palaces

to protect members of their dynasties from

evil spirits.

Sadly, those days are gone. Giant pandas

are now being hunted and their ability to

survive is being eroded. Their black and

white markings are no camouflage against

hunters – because they stand out like a sore

thumb against the green bamboo – and their

forest habitat is being decimated, as China’s

population and economy expands at such a

rapid rate. They also sleep for sixteen hours

a day, have a terribly troubled love life and

have such sorrowful eyes that I cannot resist

them.

ITV,

who

were

making

the

documentary, suggested I visit the Wolong

research centre in south-west China for a

week, to find out more about them.

When I got there, it was extraordinary.

The first time I saw a giant panda in China,

it stood so still that I thought I was looking

at a model. I got a terrible fright when it

moved. Yet it looked so vulnerable, as it

padded slowly along, and when it turned to

look at me with its wonderful black and

white clown face – which must surely have

been an elaborate practical joked played by

God – my heart melted. There are so few

giant pandas left in the world, but it is not

too late for us to prevent their extinction.

That was the message I wanted to convey

in my documentary. But what also struck me

while I was there was how, even in China, I

could not escape Poirot. At one point, as I

was filming the documentary, a group of

Japanese tourists arrived to see the pandas.

Suddenly, and I really do not know how, one

of the group recognised me and a great

shout went up: ‘It’s Hercule Poirot!’ The

pandas

were

forgotten,

and

I

was

surrounded by smiling Japanese tourists,

terribly anxious for me to sign autographs

and have my picture taken with them. It was

very flattering, but a little embarrassing, as I

believed the pandas were far more

important – and interesting – than I was.

But, yet again, it reminded me of the

extraordinary affection Poirot is held in by all

kinds of people from around the world.

When I got back from China, there was no

sign of another Poirot series, but I was

offered what was to become one of the most

interesting roles in my television career so

far – to play the controversial newspaper

and publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell, owner

of the Daily Mirror and a British MP, who had

disappeared from his yacht off the Canary

Islands in suspicious circumstances on 5

November 1991, at the age of sixty-eight.

His body was later found floating in the

Atlantic, an apparent suicide, as there was

no evidence of foul play, though rumours

abounded as to whether he had been

assassinated. He was given what amounted

to a state funeral in Israel, and the BBC

wanted to make a documentary-drama

about the final months of his life.

I had of course used ‘Captain Bob’

Maxwell’s career as part of my inspiration to

capture Augustus Melmotte in Anthony

Trollope’s The Way We Live Now , and here I

was being asked to play the man himself. It

was a wonderful opportunity to convey his

extraordinary, serpentine charm, which was

always mixed with touches of paranoia, in a

script by Craig Warner called simply Maxwell.

I relished the chance to play a robber-baron:

the real Robert Maxwell.

There was a problem, however. I was

neither as tall nor as broad as the six-foot-

three, twenty-two-stone Maxwell. But I

decided that I did not want to be padded up

to look bigger, or to wear lifts in my shoes; I

simply wanted to capture his voice. For me,

that was the true entry point into his

character, not his size, because his voice

came from deep down within him. It was an

expression of his power, his self-assurance

and his incredible self-confidence – no small

feat for a man who had not even owned a

pair of shoes until he was nine years old. I

had also been lucky enough to meet

Maxwell’s wife, Betty, when I was playing

Melmotte, and had the greatest respect for

her and the way she had coped with her

husband’s excesses with such dignity and

grace. It was another reason to portray him

as a complicated man, rather than as a

caricature.

The critics seemed to like the result. The

Independent said that ‘Maxwell’s lethal

arbitrariness was beautifully conveyed,’ while

The Times accepted that although it ‘took

about a minute to forget that the real Bob

was twice his weight and size . . . his voice,

uncannily near Maxwell’s own, occupied the

space that his girth failed to’.

Immediately after filming Maxwell, I joined

the cast of a British crime movie called The

Bank Job, loosely based on an event in

September 1971, when thieves tunnelled

into the vault of a bank in Baker Street,

London, and stole millions of pounds’ worth

of jewellery and cash from a string of safety-

deposit boxes. The robbers were never

caught, and the film suggested that the

reason for this may have been that the

boxes also contained details of police

corruption, as well as evidence that a female

member of the royal family had been caught

up in a sex scandal. Written by Dick Clement

a n d Ian La Frenais, creators of the

unforgettable

comedy Porridge starring

Ronnie Barker for BBC television, and

directed by the Australian Roger Donaldson,

it was a caper from beginning to end. But it

gave me the chance to play a sleazy porn