David Suchet: Travels with Agatha Christie (Constable 2025)
David Suchet is best known for portrayingAgatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot for 25 years, but he has also had a number of other roles: in his youth he played Inspector Japp alongside Peter Ustinov’s Poirot. In his opinion, an actor should not own a role, everyone should be given the opportunity to play the character, so he wishes future Poirots all the best. He is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and was knighted in 2022. He has two grown-up children and currently lives in London with his wife.
In the summer of 2024, he was given the opportunity to travel around the world in the footsteps of Agatha Christie, the author who participate in the international tour of the British Empire in 1922. David Suchet completed the then 10-month tour in 57 days, during which he traveled to 6 countries on 21 flights and stayed in 23 hotels, many of which were the same as those where Agatha Christie herself visited. He was accompanied on the trip by his wife, who, like the author, kept a diary, and the actor took most of the photos in the book himself.
At the time of the trip, the author had only published two novels, but by the end of the trip she had already returned to England as a celebrated writer. The trip inspired many of her later novels, e.g. her fourth novel, The Man in the Brown Suit, is largely set in South Africa. She also liked to give her own experiences and characteristics to her figures, e.g. Poirot was also seasick. The Murder on the Links was published shortly after her return to home and the readers truly took Poirot to their hearts after it, because here we can really get to know his personality. David Suchet embraced the character so much that he felt like he had lost a family member after filming the series ended. This journey brought him closer to the adventurous young author.
