Poirot and Me Read Online Free PDF

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    and profession mean to me personally,
    especially when I’ve had the good fortune to
    be asked to play a man who is known, and
    loved, by so many millions of people around
    the world.
    And so it was that ‘inhabiting’ Dame
    Agatha’s Poirot preoccupied me in those first
    months of 1988. I wanted to understand
    everything about him, to become him, and to
    make him as real to the world as he was
    becoming to me. He gave my work a
    purpose, and I hoped that I would repay my
    debt to his creator by bringing him truly to
    life – in all his dimensions – for the first time.
    Just as I was beginning to immerse myself
    in him, however, I was offered a part in a
    small British film based on a Michael
    Morpurgo children’s story called When the
    Whales Came. It was a charming piece set in
    the Scilly Isles, thirty miles out from Land’s
    End in the north Atlantic, about two children
    who set out to save a beached narwhal that
    had landed on their shores, and in doing so
    saved their island from a curse.
    The stars were to be my old National
    Youth Theatre friend Helen Mirren and the
    unforgettable but distinctly shy Paul Scofield,
    Oscar-winner for his performance in the film
    of Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons in
    1966, as well as receiving a Tony for playing
    Salieri
    in
    Peter
    Shaffer’s Amadeus on
    Broadway in 1979. His portrayal of King Lear
    has been described as ‘the greatest ever
    Shakespearean performance’, and he was
    undoubtedly one of the finest actors of his
    generation. Filming would take ten weeks on
    the Scillies between April and June, and I
    was to play the third lead, a local fisherman
    called Will.
    It wasn’t an enormous part, but it was a
    beautiful place to be, and I thought it would
    give me a chance to read even more Poirot,
    away from the demands of London and the
    telephone. Besides, Sheila and the children
    could visit me on the islands, which would
    give us all a week together during the half-
    term holiday.
    So it was that I spent the beautiful spring
    of 1988 on the smallest of the Scilly Isles,
    Bryher, where the film was being shot,
    spending my spare time reading Poirot
    stories.
    The more I did so, the more the little man
    entranced me. There were so many foibles,
    so many little habits that some people found
    hard to understand, so many mannerisms –
    his need for order, his dislike of the country,
    his determination to carry a silver ‘Turnip’
    pocket watch wherever he went. Each was
    as idiosyncratic as the next, and each as
    fascinating.
    Then, as the warm winds of May turned
    into an even warmer June, I started to write
    my private list of Poirot’s habits and
    character. I called it my ‘dossier of
    characteristics’. It ended up five pages long
    and detailed ninety-three different aspects of
    his life. I have the list to this day – in fact, I
    carried it around on the set with me
    throughout all my years as Poirot, just as I
    gave a copy to every director I worked with
    on a Poirot film.
    The first note I made read simply:
    ‘Belgian! NOT French.’
    The second said: ‘Drinks tisane – hardly
    ever tea, which he calls “the English Poison”.
    Will drink coffee – black only.’
    The third echoed the same theme: ‘Has
    four lumps of sugar in tea and coffee –
    sometimes three. Once or twice, five!’
    ‘Wears pointed, tight, very shiny patent
    leather shoes,’ said the fourth, while the fifth
    added, ‘Bows a great deal – even when
    shaking hands.’
    Very gradually, from reading the books
    and keeping a note of every single item that
    illuminated his character, I was building a
    picture of the man I was about to play.
    ‘Hates to fly. Makes him feel sick,’ my list
    went on, but then also: ‘Hates travelling by
    water. Uses the “so excellent Laverguier
    method” to prevent sea-sickness.’
    ‘Regards his moustaches as a thing of
    perfect beauty,’ said my eighth note to
    myself. ‘Uses scented pomade.’
    ‘Order and method are his