Poirot & Me by David Suchet (Press Release)

I'm looking forward to this one, Poirot and Me by David Suchet and Geoffrey Wansell:

Press Release:

Headline’s Emma Tait has acquired the world rights in Poirot and Me by David Suchet, writing with Geoffrey Wansell.

Filming is about to commence on the very last episodes of the international television phenomenon Agatha Christie’s Poirot. These final five episodes will mean that all the Poirot stories have been filmed with Suchet in the starring role. In Poirot and Me David Suchet will reflect, for the first time, on the 24 years that he has played the role and the fondness he has formed for the eccentric Belgian detective, and his fans worldwide.

The book was bought at auction from Michael Alcock at Johnson and Alcock. Headline plans to publish in autumn 2013.

Emma Tait: ‘I am so excited to be publishing this book, which offers a unique opportunity in television publishing. Rather than an outsider's overview, it is the story of an iconic role told by the actor himself and it is fantastic to be working so closely with David and Geoffrey. I believe it will be a very special book and a wonderful way for David to bid farewell to his old friend Hercule Poirot.’

David Suchet and Geoffrey Wansell: ‘We are thrilled to be given this chance by Headline to bring his portrayal of Hercule Poirot to life for his millions of fans around the world. It's a wonderful – and rare – opportunity for a character actor to be able to explain his life and craft and exactly how he brought such a famous character to television audiences in more than eighty countries.’

Extracts from book:

“He was as real to me as he had been to her, a great detective, a remarkable man, if, perhaps, just now and then, a little irritating. He had inhabited my life every bit as much as he must have done hers as she wrote thirty-three novels, more than fifty short stories, and a play about him – making Poirot the most famous fictional detective in the world alongside Sherlock Holmes.

But how had it come to this? How had I come to inhabit his morning jacket and pin-striped trousers, his black patent leather shoes and his elegantly brushed grey Homburg hat for so many years? What brought us together? Was there something in me that found a particular echo in this short, tubby man in his sixties given to pince-nez and saying ‘chut’ instead of ‘ssh’?

Looking back now, these many years later, I suspect in my heart there was.”

“In the end Brian and I came up with a moustache that we both thought exactly conveyed what Dame Agatha had in mind – a small, neat, carefully waxed one that curled upwards at each end, and where the tip of each of end of the moustache would be level with the tip of my nose. For us it was the best-looking waxed moustache in England, and exactly what Hercule Poirot must have.”