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A&E

Suchet brought Poirot elfin, balding, dapper, eccentric, fussy and fiercely intelligent to full, delightful life on 'Mystery!' in seven films beginning in 1988.

THAT'S THE DATE when Suchet will play, for the first time in more than five years, his most famous role Agatha Christie's immensely popular Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot in the two-hour murder-mystery "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," 8 p.m. ET on A&E.

Just as the late Jeremy Brett so memorably inhabited the character of Sherlock Holmes in a BBC/PBS series, Suchet, who is British, brought Poirot elfin, balding, dapper, eccentric, fussy and fiercely intelligent to full, delightful life on "Mystery!" in seven films beginning in 1988.

Then in 1995, Poirot disappeared from the telly just like a victim in a Christie whodunit. Despite the series' popularity, the producers decided not to continue. Suchet is still baffled.

"I really don't know why no more films were made," he says. "The 'Poirot' films are sold in 53 countries. I read in the paper at the time that it was my decision to not do any more Poirot films, but I'd always said that I'd do as many as I can do."

ANOTHER SEQUEL DUE
That's what he intends to do. The series has been revived in part by A&E, which has been running older episodes since 1993. Aside from "Roger Ackroyd," another sequel, "Lord Edgware Dies," is due in June.
And Suchet, who has missed playing Poirot, is dying to do even more. 
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"I like the little man very much indeed," he says. "I always have. And it's wonderful to come back to him."

However, Suchet, 53, found that his five-year absence from Poirot had left him rusty.

"I thought it wouldn't take so much work to play him again," he says. "But in the five years since, I've done so many different other things. Coming back to him, I thought the glove would fit quite easily, but the glove was in fact dry and cracked. So I had to go back to practicing, to watching videotapes of the earlier films.

"And I was a bit worried because I'm at a certain age when the years leave a mark and I didn't want to look very different from before. But nature's been good to me. Fortunately, you can't see the seams. I just look upward and thank God."

If the gumshoe fits, wear it. Fans of the series will be happy to know that Suchet has revived Poirot's expensive, immaculate wardrobe, fussbudget eccentricities and Belgian-French accent with the same fidelity as before.

Suchet is nothing if not protective of the character. Though Poirot can be humorous, Suchet says, he is not a man to be laughed at nor trifled with. He's no Belgian waffler.

"Earlier productions with Poirot were, I found, a bit jokey, a bit untrue to what Christie wrote," says Suchet, referring to films that starred Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov in the role.

"Mine is the Poirot that Christie wrote. He's not an idiot, a buffoon. You can smile with him at times, but you cannot laugh at him. He has an enormous dark side, a gruff, aggressive manner, as well. All I've tried to do is bring out what was done in the books and that is what fascinates people. People tell me that when they read the books, they can see me, and that's the biggest compliment of all.

"I protect him all the time, even on the film set. I once had a big row with one particular director on one of the earlier episodes. There was a scene where I had to yell a character's name. I said, 'I can't do that.' 'What do you mean?,' he asked. 'Poirot doesn't yell,' I said. 'To yell, I've got to behave out of character, so you must readjust the way you're directing. In the end, I've got to do what's right for this little man. I've got 500 million viewers."'

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