Trivia / Poirot

• Acting for Two:
  • Alan Howard plays both Benedict Farley and his murderer Hugo Cornworthy in "The Dream".
  • Stephanie Leonidas plays Hattie Stubbs and the woman posing as her in "Dead Man's Folly".
• Actor Allusion:
  • In the adaptation of Five Little Pigs, Toby Stephens and Rachael Stirling play two characters between whom there is some long-standing animosity and desire for the same man. Their mothers, Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg, had squared off as Daphne Castle and Arlena Marshall in the 1982 film of Poirot story Evil Under the Sun, in which both women were ultimately rivals for the affections of Kenneth Marshall.
  • The 2010 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express features Elena Satine as the American-born wife of a Hungarian diplomat, who adopts an Eastern European accent to disguise her origins. Satine is a naturalized American citizen but was originally born in Georgia (the country, not the state).
• Actor-Shared Background: In the documentary special "David Suchet on the Orient Express", David Suchet remarked that when he was a struggling actor he held a day job in a London department store and learned (on his own initiative) to tie a bow tie perfectly, a skill he used often when playing the dandy Poirot.
• Blooper: In "Lord Edgware Dies", during the first dinner scene, Helen Grace, the actress playing Jane Wilkinson, is seen chatting at the table. However, in the denouement when Poirot says that Carlotta Adams, the actress impersonating Wilkinson, was at the dinner table, we next see Fiona Allen in the Jane Wilkinson disguise at the table, not Grace. This was apparently done as a cheat in the murder mystery to avoid giving away the solution in the earlier dinner scene.
• California Doubling:
  • Tabernas in Almeria, Spain doubles for the Egyptian desert in The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb.
  • Oudna, Tunisia stands in for Tel Yarimjah in Iraq for Murder in Mesopotamia, while the Casino de Hammam Lif within the same country stands in for Poirot's Baghdad hotel.
• Cast the Expert: During the filming of the Buenos Aires restaurant scene in "The Yellow Iris", the episode's producers hired British singer Carol Kenyon for her role in the song "I've Forgotten You", which fits Iris Russell's theme, and whose tune is played throughout the episode.
• Creator Breakdown: David Suchet himself has said in an interview that he chose to star in Curtain first in the final production block for a reason: he didn't want Poirot's death on the same moment the actor would finish the role to be too depressing or to be "a negative thing for [him] to go through", so he asked the producers to have him star in Curtain before having Poirot remain alive for the filming of the final four episodes. But even as Suchet chose to do Curtain first, it felt agonizing for him to play the role of a dying Belgian detective who didn't just pass away, but did so after ending his final case with a bang. Filming his actual death was the hardest day of the actor's life; it felt that "a part of me died with [Poirot]". Here's an excerpt from Suchet's Poirot and Me in this link.
• Creator Couple:
  • In Problem at Sea, Mr and Mrs. Tolliver were played by real-life married couple Caroline John and Geoffrey Beevers.
  • Captain Jim Warburton and his wife Enid were played by real-life married couple Martin Jarvis and Rosalind Ayres in "Dead Man's Folly".
  • The screenplay for the adaptation of The Big Four was written by real-life married couple Mark Gatiss and Ian Hallard.
• Doing It for the Art: David Suchet stuck with the role of Poirot because he felt it was a good opportunity to definitively portray the character and provide audiences with a singular performance that encompasses an entire body of work.
• Dyeing for Your Art: David Suchet wore a rubber fat suit throughout his time as Poirot to portray a man who loved food and drink without having to gain any weight himself. This proved to be a challenge whenever the show filmed in desert locales, as he suffered in the heat. In something of an inversion, when playing Poirot as a young uniformed policeman, he wore a corset. Suchet eschewed the fat suit and also lost a significant amount of weight in order to better show how sickly Poirot is in his last days in "Curtain".
• Fake American: Canadian actor Colin Stinton plays American gentleman Charles Lester. Also, British actress Fiona Allen plays American actress Carlotta Adams. British actress Cheryl Campbell plays American financier Lady Leonora Boynton (née Pierce).
• Fake Brit: American actress Jessica Chastain plays British spinster Mary Debenham (see Retroactive Recognition on the YMMV page). Also, American actress Aimee Mullins plays Lucy Crale in "Five Little Pigs".^note Played with, in that although Lucy is British, she has lived in Canada since the age of seven. Likewise, American actress Megan Dodds plays Henrietta Savernake in "The Hollow", and American actress Elizabeth McGovern plays British Dame Celia Westholme in "Appointment with Death". A number of Irish actors also play British roles over the series, including Niamh Cusack, Aidan Gillen, Orla Brady and Sinéad Keenan.
• Fake Nationality: The (French-speaking) Belgian detective Poirot is played by British actor David Suchet. Despite his surname, he has no known French-speaking ancestry; "Suchet" is actually a corruption of the Yiddish "Schohet".^note His father was of Lithuanian-Jewish descent.
• In Memoriam: A disclaimer in the end credits for The Clocks says that the episode is dedicated to the memory of Anna Massey, an actress who died over two years after the filming was completed.
• Method Acting: David Suchet analyzed Agatha Christie's novels and stories in minute detail and wrote a detailed dossier on Poirot to get an understanding of the character and would refer to it in order to deliver a consistent portrayal. He would also stay in character as Poirot as long as the mustache was on his lip.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In "The Double Clue", Countess Vera Rossakoff is played by Kika Markham. Rossakoff returns in the penultimate episode "The Labours of Hercules", but this time the actress who played her is Orla Brady.
  • In the French dub, Poirot was voiced by Roger Carel for the first twelve seasons. After Carel retired, he was replaced by Philippe Ariotti for Season 13.
• Real-Life Relative: Lord Edgware Dies exemplifies the Identical Stranger phenomenon between Bryan Martin and Alton by having the two played by brothers Christopher and Dominic Guard.
  • Mother and daughter Phyllida Law and Sophie Thompson appear in Hallowe’en Party as Mrs. Goodbody and Mrs. Reynolds, respectively, though their characters only share a single scene together.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: In Hickory Dickory Dock Sarah Badel bears such a striking resemblance to Pauline Moran that her casting as Miss Lemon's sister Florence is very convincing.
• Sequel Gap: Most series are separated from each other by a year or two, yet Series 7 was broadcast four years after Series 6 (2000 and 1996 respectively).
• Throw It In!:
  • In "The Theft of the Royal Ruby", Poirot shows the Laceys and their guests the trick on how to cut a mango, a skill that he inherited from "a Duke". According to Peter Haining, the mango-cutting scene came from a dinner that David Suchet attended as a guest of Elizabeth II and Prince Philip; the real-life Duke indeed taught Suchet the trick, and Suchet asked the scriptwriters to include it in the episode.
  • And in "Dead Man's Folly", Poirot plays a ring-tossing game at the garden fête and wins a kewpie doll, which he gives to a little girl, just like in the novel. This scene wasn't originally in the script, but Suchet wanted it in to show off a bit more comedy to the otherwise serious drama.
• You Look Familiar:
  • Sean Pertwee played Ronnie Oglander in "King of Clubs" in 1989 and came back to play George Stubbs in "Dead Man's Folly" in 2013.
  • David Yelland, who played Charles Laverton West in Murder in the Mews, returns as Poirot's valet George for the remainder of the series from Season 10 onward. (Quite the drop in status, from MP to valet...)
  • Zoë Wanamaker, who portrayed Ariadne Oliver from 2006 onwards, had previously played Miss Blacklock in "A Murder Is Announced" from ITV's Marple.
  • Nicholas Farrell played Donald Fraser in The ABC Murders in 1992 and Major Knighton in The Mystery of the Blue Train in 2005.
  • Haydn Gwynne played Coco Courtenay in The Affair at the Victory Ball (1991) and Miss Battersby in Third Girl (2008).
  • Beth Goddard played Violet Wilson in The Case of the Missing Will (1993) and Sister Agnieszka in Appointment with Death (2009).
• Wag the Director: When it came to Poirot's characterization and motivations, there was no higher authority than David Suchet himself, and he would override the writers and directors if he felt that they were doing a disservice to the character.
• What Could Have Been: As this companion documentary shows, series composer Christopher Gunning had sent four proposals for the main theme to the producers, where they picked the fourth as the now-iconic theme. Gunning's personal favorite and the one he wanted to win is also heard in his segment.

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