Actor John Malkovich, who will play Poirot in a new BBC adaptation, has admitted his portrayal may not go down well with fans, or the Christie estate. He is playing the character with an English accent, for one thing, which is like playing the Terminator as a Welshman. Worse, he won’t even have a moustache.
I know we’re trying to embrace America and distance ourselves from anything that smells of Brussels, but STOP GETTING POIROT WRONG. It is all about the moustache, for one thing. That pert little waxed and styled adornment signals the Belgian detective’s fastidiousness. Make an effort, guys. David Suchet, the painstaking thespian who played the role for 24 years, described how he perfected the character’s walk by gripping a penny in his bum cheeks at all times. At the director’s request, Malkovich’s Poirot will sport a goatee, modelled on the actor’s own. What is this, Breaking Bad?
Quite possibly. Further details of the three-part show indicate this will be a darker portrayal than Suchet’s, depicting a man grappling with his sexuality, and the psychological and physical scarring of the first world war. The darkness of war was present in Christie’s original source material – hinted at, but not foregrounded.
It is just possible we have approached peak edgy. The more tortured and broken our times, the more we need relief. The show will air at Christmas; have we not deserved a break by then? Will new Poirot be followed by Bagpuss Rebooted, in which an old cat struggles with dementia and the mortality his saggy cloth body forces him to confront? Or an MMA depiction of Santa as an isolated, seasonal worker forced to reckon with violent homeowners following beefed-up “stand your ground” laws? Actually, I would watch the hell out of that. As you were, Malkovich.
