David Suchet finds a new face in the famous writer Agatha Christie

EXCLUSIVE: Having played Hercule Poirot on TV for more than a quarter of a century, David Suchet has become something of an expert on Agatha Christie, the world-famous author who created the iconic Belgian detective and wrote numerous best-selling novels. Sleuths among Deadline readers may know that he’s already headed to the Croisette this year to promote his docu-series Travel with Agatha with Sir David Suchet.

Retracing a journey that Christie undertook at the beginning of her literary career, she discovered a new face of the prolific writer: an effervescent, bubbly character who socialized late into the night and who, on the beach , was even known to capture. a wave

“I’ve come to know my author as a more three-dimensional human being, and that’s an unexpected gift,” Suchet says of her current trip, which has taken her to Australia, Canada, Hawaii, New Zealand and South Africa. “I was learning about the character of a young woman who liked to surf, who liked to socialize, who actually, when her first stories were published, was willing to give interviews to the press. She was vivacious. On board the ship, she openly writes that she was kept up to date with one of the officers on board who was discovering during my trip “I met her.”

The travelogue series sees the actor follow a course charted by the writer of Poirot and Miss Marple in 1922. She accompanied her then-husband Archibald “Archie” Christie on The British Empire Exhibition Mission, with the trip designed to arouse interest in a subsequent celebration. of the British Empire.

The insight into a young Christie’s life is all the more fascinating given her enigmatic and publicity-shy personality in her later years, including a famous 11-day disappearance in 1926 that made headlines of the newspapers “In her later life she was a recluse,” explains Suchet. “He didn’t like publicity. He was a very private person.”

Suchet says the trip gave her a greater reading of the character she played for so long. “Agatha Christie was violently dizzy every time she traveled,” he says. “In retrospect, that was a very good reason why he also made Poirot violently ill. A lot of his experiences were put into his books and his characters.”

Soho Studios and Two Rivers Media are making the show, with Channel 4 in the UK, BritBox in North America and the Nordics, and SBS in Australia already on board. MIPCOM will see the show’s international launch and Suchet will be in town. It is a key title for Sphere Abacus, the new producer and distributor created this summer when Sphere Media acquired Abacus Media Rights.

For many, Suchet made the role of Poirot his own. Having exhausted the supply of novels, she retired from the role in 2013. She recalls crying when the writer’s daughter, Rosalind, told her that her mother would have approved of her portrayal.

Has following in Christie’s footsteps reignited the urge to play Poirot again?

“In 2013 I decided I wasn’t going to do any Poirot that wasn’t Agatha Christie, and I had done all her stories, but I said openly that I would like to do one on the big screen,” Suchet. he says But which one? “The movie I would have liked to make is probably not the one that anyone would have wanted to make because it’s not his most famous book, but my favorite is ‘The ABC Murders,’ which is a wonderful story.”