‘Poirot’ Star David Suchet Reunites With the Character’s Creator in ‘Travels With Agatha Christie’
Actor David Suchet draws on his longtime association with Agatha Christie’s renowned detective Hercule Poirot for an engaging travel series following Christie’s own global journey.
Although numerous actors have played Agatha Christie’s renowned detective Hercule Poirot during the past 80-plus years, no one is more closely associated with the character than David Suchet. The British actor played Poirot in 70 episodes of the ITV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot over the course of nearly 25 years, covering every published Poirot novel and short story. Suchet’s tenure as Poirot ended in 2013, but his career remains indelibly linked with Christie, and he returns to her world for the new BritBox series Travels With Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet (premiering March 8).
Suchet isn’t back to playing Poirot, though — he’s hosting a five-episode travel series that retraces a journey that Christie made in 1922 as part of the British Empire Exhibition, along with her then-husband Archie. The Exhibition was a two-year event in London akin to a world’s fair, promoting ties among various British colonies. The Christies embarked on a 10-month tour that took them to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, to learn about the economies and cultures of those regions and determine the best ways to represent them in the Exhibition.
Suchet follows in Christie’s footsteps, with several goals in mind. As a Christie aficionado, he wants to learn more about her life at the time and how her experiences influenced her work. He also explores the legacy of colonialism in these now-former British territories. And most importantly for a travel show, he displays the beauty of the various destinations, which also include Hawaii, where the Christies took a personal holiday in the middle of the trip.
Travels is most successful on that last point, easily justifying Suchet’s many exclamations of “amazing,” “wonderful,” “unbelievable,” “my goodness” and so on, as he witnesses some truly awe-inspiring sights. Suchet joins the ranks of celebrities like Stanley Tucci and Conan O’Brien who’ve turned their love for travel into TV shows, and his enthusiasm is genuine, if a bit simplistic. If nothing else, Travels is an endearing showcase for an aging actor experiencing the joy of discovery.
Suchet is equally enthusiastic about Christie herself, although the insights about her life and career are sporadic, and sometimes entirely speculative. It’s fascinating to learn about Christie’s status as a pioneering female surfer during the Hawaii episode, but at other times Suchet simply says he’d “like to think” that Christie made a particular observation or witnessed a specific event.
Suchet draws connections between Christie’s travels and the events in some of her early novels, which were written around the same time, and he consults experts for further information. Longtime Christie fans probably won’t learn anything new, but the grand vistas of Travels offer a vivid illustration of facts and anecdotes that Christie devotees may already be familiar with.
The show is least effective at wrestling with the complicated and troubling history of colonial expansion, although Suchet spends time in each episode highlighting injustices that were perpetrated against indigenous peoples, and the lingering effects of those policies. He seems just as genuinely interested in learning about indigenous cultures as he is in delving into Christie’s life or viewing breathtaking sights, but his responses remain superficial, and the discussions with representatives from those communities are presented as just one more aspect of sightseeing.
It’s tough to encompass all of these elements in a five-episode series, and Suchet acknowledges that the Christies spent weeks or even months in each location, while he only has a few days to cover countries as vast as Canada and Australia. The excerpts from relevant Christie novels, including The Man in the Brown Suit, The Secret Adversary and The Murder on the Links, suggest that a more expansive series exploring locations featured in all of her work could be more rewarding and more comprehensive.
Perhaps Suchet will embark on another such journey in the future, but for now, Travels is a pleasant and accessible introduction to the complex life and work of its still-enigmatic subject.
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for Vulture, IndieWire, Tom’s Guide, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.