“Agatha Christie’s Poirot” ran for 13 series and 70 episodes on ITV, from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. The Belgian detective in the starched collar never once broke faith with the books. It ends at 8.2 out of 10.
Trailer, via AcornMediaUS.
David Suchet Learns the Part
The casting is the whole story. Christie’s family recommended David Suchet after seeing him as Blott in the adaptation of Tom Sharpe’s “Blott on the Landscape.” Suchet, a method actor, read every Poirot novel and every short story, copying out each piece of description into a file.
He described the process to The Strand Magazine: “What I did was, I had my file on one side of me and a pile of stories on the other side and day after day, week after week, I ploughed through most of Agatha Christie’s novels about Hercule Poirot and wrote down characteristics until I had a file full of documentation of the character.” He said his business was not only to know what Poirot was like, but to gradually become him.
The Bench and the Handkerchief
That preparation nearly ended the show in series one. Suchet fought a director over a handkerchief — he insisted Poirot place it down before sitting on a park bench. He later said, “there’s no question [Poirot’s] obsessive-compulsive.”
It is a small thing, and it is the reason the performance holds.
Hastings, Lemon, Japp, George
Suchet carried the title role, but the early series surrounded him with a full household of regulars.
- Hugh Fraser as Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot’s closest friend
- Pauline Moran as Felicity Lemon, his secretary
- Philip Jackson as Inspector James Japp
- David Yelland as George, the butler, in later series
- Zoë Wanamaker as crime novelist Ariadne Oliver
Nicholas Farrell and Beatie Edney were among the actors who played multiple parts in specific episodes.
A Run That Finished the Canon
The production moved from LWT to ITV Studios, and the show aired on VisionTV in Canada and on PBS and A&E in the United States. Every episode adapted a Christie novel or short story featuring Poirot.
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| First episode | 8 January 1989 |
| Suchet hoped to finish before turning 65 | May 2011 |
| Final series, 5 episodes | 2013 |
| “Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case” | 13 November 2013 |
Suchet said in 2007 that he wanted to film the remaining stories before his 65th birthday. Speculation of cancellation surfaced in early 2011. The thirteenth series arrived in 2013, and “Curtain,” based on the 1975 novel, closed it out. Every major literary work featuring Poirot had been adapted.
Rosalind Hicks Delivers a Verdict
Suchet revealed in 2013 that Christie’s daughter, Rosalind Hicks, told him she was sure Christie would have approved. That is a family verdict, not a critical one, but it lands harder than most awards.
What the Performance Actually Proves
Many critics and enthusiasts call Suchet’s characterization the most accurate of any actor who has played Poirot, and the closest to the page. The claim is easy to defend here because the show gives you the evidence: the file, the bench, the handkerchief, the refusal to play the detective as a joke. The 70 episodes are uneven, as any long run must be, and the later series lean on Ariadne Oliver and George in ways the early ones never did. None of that touches the center.
What matters is that a method actor spent a career becoming a fictional man, and the camera caught it. 8.2 out of 10.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.