David Suchet certainly knows how to work a stage. From the moment he makes his first appearance it’s plain that he’s got the audience in the palm of his hand.
Wryly self-deprecating, he delights in recalling some of his youthful theatrical disasters (such as his debut at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where his dramatic entrance was somewhat spoiled after he tripped over and broke his sword!).
His friend Geoffrey Wansell (who co-wrote the book Poirot and Me with him) is on hand to guide him through the milestones of his career. The first half is roughly chronological, briefly touching upon Poirot but concentrating more on the roles that preceded him.
Suchet remains convinced that his earlier brush with Agatha Christie (playing Chief Inspector Japp opposite Peter Ustinov’s Poirot in the American TVM Thirteen at Dinner) was an absolute disaster, but I feel he’s being far too harsh on himself there. It’s an interesting curio though, one which every Christie fan should track down.
A famously analytical actor, at one point he provides a fascinating insight into the way he thought himself into characters like Sigmund Freud, Salvador Dali and Robert Maxwell.
A decent chunk of the second half is taken up with a Shakespeare masterclass. Easily the highlight of the afternoon for me, Suchet delivers a series of monologues from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice. Along he way he stops to analyse each one – his comments on Shylock (a character who’s been problematic for many decades) are especially insightful.
We close, as you’d expect, with Poirot. David Suchet is quick to acknowledge the debt he owes to that funny little Belgian – commenting that without him he probably wouldn’t have been offered many of the plum stage roles that have come his way over the last thirty years (and also that he wouldn’t have been able to pull together much of an audience for this talk!)
There’s not a great deal of time for him to go into specifics about episodes, etc. Instead he takes us step by step through the way he assembled the character – from poring through Christie’s original stories, to finding the walk (using an old Laurence Olivier trick) and then the voice. It’s a magical end to a thoroughly enjoyable theatrical treat.
Poirot and More continues to tour the UK until the end of the year and will be playing a limited run at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London next January. If it turns up anywhere near you then I can heartily recommend it.
A recent post by Simply Media has inspired me to select my favourite Agatha Christie adaptations (due to the parameters of this blog I’ll concentrate on television only).
06. Peter Ustinov in Thirteen at Dinner (1985). I’ve a lot of time for the 1980’s American Christie television movies. They may take liberties with the source material (this one, for example, is updated to the present day – giving us the odd sight of Poirot guesting on David Frost’s chat show) but you can’t help but love Ustinov’s idiosyncratic and entertaining Poirot.
It boasts a wonderful guest cast – David Suchet as Japp!, Faye Dunaway in a duel role with Bill Nighy, Diane Keen, John Barron and Jonathan Cecil as the ever-loyal Hastings offering solid support. Certainly well worth a look.
05. Francesca Annis and James Warwick in Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (1980). Prior to the 1980’s, Agatha Christie adaptations on television were a rarity. This was due to Christie and later on her estate not wishing to see her stories distorted (although given some of the, ahem, more interesting adaptations during recent years I guess the copyright holders now hold a more relaxed view). Therefore the early 1980’s ITV adaptations were something of a trial run – with Poirot and Miss Marple off-limits, ITV had to scrabble around amongst the more obscure corners of Christie’s catalogue in order to prove that they could do her works justice.
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? isn’t classic Christie, but it’s a more than decent mystery. Annis and Warwick, as Lady Frankie Derwent and Bobby Jones, team up nicely (a few years later they’d return to the world of Christie as Tommy and Tuppence Beresford). Evans has another cast to die for – a pre-Marple Joan Hickson, James Cossins, Madeline Smith, Eric Porter and an amusing cameo from John Gielgud. It’s maybe slightly too long, but it’s still very agreeable.
04. And Then There Were None (2013). I may loathe Sarah Phelps’ adaptation of The Witness for the Prosecution with a passion, but there’s no denying that And Then There Were None is a quality production. The main problem I have with Witness is that it’s mostly Phelps with very little Christie showing. And Then There Were None is more recognisably Christie, albeit with a few tweaks. An all-starish cast helps to bring to life one of her darker works.
03. The Moving Finger (1985). Whilst the debate about the best Sherlock Holmes isn’t clear cut, surely there can’t be much of a question about who was the best Miss Marple? In every respect Joan Hickson wipes the floor with her ITV counterparts (as well as Margaret Rutherford – a fine actress, but no Miss Marple). If Hickson is first-rate, then so too are the twelve BBC adaptations she starred in. All-film productions, with high production values, they just ooze class and style.
With Roy Boulting on directing duties and some fine performances (always a pleasure to see John Arnatt and Richard Pearson, amongst others) The Moving Finger is one of the best of the early Hickson Marples. It may not be the most taxing mystery Christie ever wrote, but it has more nuanced characters that we sometimes saw – for example, the relationship between Gerry and Megan is an atypical touch.
02. David Suchet in The Third Floor Flat (1989). The Suchet Poirots were clearly following in the footsteps of the Hickson Marples with a similar glossy all-film style. That Suchet managed to film the entire canon is laudable, although it’s a little sad that some of the later adaptations began to veer severely away from the originals. Possibly this is why I’m most fond of the earlier runs which began by concentrating on Christie’s short stories. It’s true that some of them are a bit thin (Christie’s early short stories can be fairly perfunctory in some respects) but the television versions are nicely bulked out thanks to the sympathetic adaptations.
01. Joan Hickson in The Body in the Library (1984). Back to Hickson for her debut as Miss Marple, broadcast on BBC1 during Christmas 1984. Sarah Phelps has recently restarted the tradition of a “Christie for Christmas” – hopefully her next one won’t be quite so depressing though.
Allo,Allo! fans will be able to spot a pre-Crabtree Arthur Bostrom, Jess Conrad is perfect as the pearly-white Raymond Starr, Andrew Cruickshank is an intimidating Conway Jefferson whilst David Horovitch and Ian Brimble begin their careers as Slack and Lake – two police officers destined to always be at least two steps behind the elderly spinster who may look harmless but possesses a mind like a steel trap.
When Paul Pennyfeather (Jack Whitehall) is expelled from Oxford through no fault of his own, he finds his employment options to be rather limited. So he travels to Wales to take up a position as a teacher at a rather inferior public school, run by the intimidating Dr Fagan (David Suchet). Everything seems bleak until he spies the beautiful and wealthy Margot Beste-Chetwynde (Eve Longoria) …..
Evelyn Waugh’s classic class satire, first published in 1928, turns out to be surprisingly contemporary. James Wood’s adaptation wisely doesn’t stray too far from the original source material, so much so that some of Waugh’s most biting dialogue is lifted verbatim from the page.
The first episode finds Paul in Wales, Llanabba to be precise. Mr Levy (Kevin Eldon) who sends him on his way, tells him that the school he’s going to doesn’t have a terribly good name. “We class our schools into four grades here: leading schools, first-rate schools, good schools, and schools. The status of this school is … school. And school is pretty bad.” Eldon is just one of a number of quality actors who pop up in cameo roles, indeed the strength in depth of the casting is one of Decline and Fall‘s great assets.
It’s a bittersweet moment to see Tim Piggott-Smith as Sniggs, mere days after his death was announced. Piggott-Smith, along with Nickolas Grace, John Woodvine, Michael Cochrane, Tim Woodward and Geoffrey McGivern (great fun as Mr Wilson, an inebriated surgeon), all make brief – but very welcome – appearances.
David Suchet has some wonderful scenes throughout the first episode. In one of the DVD featurettes he mentions that he hasn’t played comedy for some time and it seems plain that he’s enjoying himself enormously. Fagan’s tirade against the Welsh is a classic Waugh moment which Suchet delivers impeccably. “I do truly believe that the Welsh are the only nation in the world that has produced nothing of any worth. The produce no painting or sculpture, no architecture or drama of any kind. They just sing.”
Three other grotesques – Grimes (Douglas Hodge), Prendergast (Vincent Franklin) and Philbrick (Stephen Graham) – are also lurking in and around the school. Grimes and Prendergast (or Prendy as he’s known) are Paul’s fellow tutors whilst Philbrick is the intimidating school porter, a man complete with a colourful, mysterious and ever-changing past. Like Suchet, it’s easy to see that Hodge, Franklin and Graham are relishing the material, although they manage to keep their characters grounded in some sort of reality.
Although Grimes is a comic character, wooden leg and all, the comedy is rather dark. Hodge is able to make him appear rakishly appealing even if it’s plain that there’s something nasty lurking just below the surface. Franklin is touching as the drunken, wig-wearing Prendy – a man who agonises through every school day – whilst Graham casts an imposing physical presence as Philbrick.
The disastrous sports day – with Prendy firing his starting pistol at one of the unfortunate pupils – is a fabulous early set-piece although this turns out to be another example of Waugh’s dark humour. In the second episode we see the unfortunate boy shot by Prendy having his injured foot amputated and in the final instalment we’re casually told that he died.
Jack Whitehall, Douglas Hodge & David Suchet
Grimes’ wedding to one of Dr Fagan’s daughters early in the second episode is another delightful scene, thanks to Hodge’s immaculate playing. Poor Grimes is really not keen to get married for several reasons and spends the ceremony desperately hoping that someone will step up to give a just cause or impediment. Alas, nobody does and when Grimes’ clothes are found a few days later on the beach it appears that he’s taken a pretty permanent way out. Or has he?
Episode two is where Paul’s relationship with Margot deepens. Like the others, she’s a bizarre creation – albeit very attractive – and Longoria is perfect in the role. Paul loves her deeply whilst she responds with an air of absent-minded affection, although she does finally agree that it might be pleasant if they did get married.
Surrounded as he is by effortless scene-stealers, Jack Whitehall has by far the most challenging part to play. Paul has to be the still centre – sensible and honest – otherwise the grotesques have nothing to reflect against. That Whitehall manages to make Paul much more than just a pompous prig is greatly to his credit – his role may be less showy than the others, but it’s just as skilled.
He gets some good comic moments though, such as when he demonstrates his piano skills to a roomful of Margot’s friends (he can’t play a note). Paul announces that his piece is thoroughly modern in style, which is the prelude for a discordant cacophony of noise which leaves most of them thoroughly nonplussed.
If there’s a theme to the story, then it seems to be that wealth and privilege ensure that you never have to face the consequences of your actions (something which seems as relevant today). In the first episode, Paul is the one sent down (expelled) from Oxford purely because the real troublemakers – all from affluent families – could afford to pay their fines, whilst Paul – from a more humble background – couldn’t.
This is somewhat mirrored at the start of the final instalment after Paul is arrested for his part in a white-slavery ring. Again, he’s innocent – it’s Margot who’s the guilty party – but he can’t bring himself to name her (plus it’s strongly implied that the establishment would never believe him anyway) so he finds himself sentenced to seven years penal servitude.
It’s a rather unlikely coincidence that both Grimes and Philbrick are his fellow prisoners whilst Prendy turns out to be the prison vicar (a sudden career change after he decided that the life of a schoolmaster wasn’t for him) but by this stage of the story there’s little point in complaining about a certain lack of naturalism. The prison episode gives Philbrick the chance to display a more human side to his nature, Grimes to make a daring escape on horseback (an impressive feat for a unidexter) whilst Prendy’s exit is the most memorable of them all ….
There’s a pleasing circular path to to Paul’s journey. After he’s sprung from prison with the aid of Dr Fagan, he’s able to fake his own death and return to Oxford as his own distant relation. Maybe second time around things will work out right.
Acorn’s DVD has three featurettes (all around five minutes each) – Adaptation, On Set and Satire. With such brief running times they obviously don’t go into great detail, but they do feature short interviews with all the main cast, plus James Wood and director Guillem Morales. A short picture gallery is also included.
Laugh-out loud funny in places, somewhat disturbing in others, Decline and Fall is a sparkling comic treat, albiet one with a strong cynical streak. Following the somewhat lumpy adaptation of Len Deighton’s SS-GB (somehow one of Deighton’s best books was transformed into a six-hour plod) Decline and Fall shows that the BBC hasn’t completely lost the ability to mount a successful adaptation of a literary classic.
Decline and Fall is released by Acorn on the 17th of April 2017. RRP £19.99.
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