One of the things that emerges strongly from Suchet's book "Poirot and Me" is the uncertainty that the end of filming for each series brought. Would another series be commissioned?
This comes out very strongly in chapter eight. "Another Christmas, and that niggling anxiety remained: would I be reunited with the idiosyncratic detective?" he writes.
Audience and critical reaction to series two quickly proved positive, but with no immediate news about another series, Suchet accepted an offer to appear on the stage in a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.
Then, as the second series was coming to the end of its broadcast run, London Weekend made the offer for a third series. Scarcely had the theatre run ended and Suchet was back at the Twickenham studios for pre-production work on series three.
He points out in this chapter that some of Agatha Christie's short stories were 'slight' and needed expanding to bring them to television. This is something I have already referred to on more than one occasion in my reviews thus far.
There is one particularly interesting anecdote in this chapter. Suchet recalls being invited to a private lunch at Buckingham Palace shortly before filming began on series three. At this event he learned - from Prince Philip, no less - how to peel and prepare a mango!
Suchet had this written into the script for The Theft of the Royal Ruby, with Poirot recounting how "A certain duke taught me"!
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