David Suchet

David Suchet as Poirot is a perfect fit. He played the part in all of Christie’s works in the television series that was filmed over 25 years. A fantastic accomplishment. He - and Christie’s daughter - were determined that he should play the part faithfully, without making a comic character of Poirot. Early in his preparation he realized he and Poirot had more in common than previously realized. In this memoir Suchet describes each of the plots and his experiences, which were probably too much and too repetitive for anyone other than a Christie devotee. The repetition became annoying.

I have always admired Suchet as Poirot and watched most of the episodes, if not all, but I ended up speeding through some of the chapters, especially the ones describing the parts he played in between. Typical of biography written by actors, the description of the parts he played were accompanied by what amounted to a credits list with a summary of the accomplishments of each person: directed by blah blah who was the brilliant director of the famous television series blah blah….… (more)

I'm a fan of Mr Suchet - not only Poirot but fortunate enough to see him in "The Last Confession" on stage some years ago and it was spell binding - both he and the cast managed to make you forget you were watching a play and not actually watching real life unfolding. Incredible. I did also see him in something else much later playing an Irish American and that was pretty awful, so I guess that shows I am not going to like everything he's done...!

Enjoyed his Poirot and Me book and was looking forward to reading this. It is perhaps a typical actor's autobiog in some respects - early life, "how I got started", anecdotes, "what I think about..." etc but split into subject chapters rather than being a chronological full autobiography. Instead it is also illustrated with copious photos throughout - DS is quite the photographer and the stated aim of the book is that the reader will perhaps learn as much of him from the photos as from the text.

Well the text is an interesting enough light read, without being in any way controversial. And the photos are fine but not too many struck me as particularly meaningful. Some are in colour, most are B/W, even if they don't really benefit from being B/W. Not many struck me as "wow, what a great photo" but then that's not why he was including them, I suspect.

All in all, a pleasant read but not a book I would return to - unlike "Poirot and Me", which I do find myself returning to.… (more)