Travels with Agatha Christie
David Suchet
Constable
ISBN 978-1-40872-392-0
Actor David Suchet is probably best known for his television portrayal, over many years, of Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot. So completely did he immerse himself into the part that many a critic used the words ‘David Suchet is Poirot’.
Many years after Poirot exercised the ‘little grey cells’ for the last time, Suchet set out on a journey. Just over 100 years ago, Agatha Christie, then a budding writer just starting her career accompanied her husband as part of a ‘delegation’. The object was to promote the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 … and to persuade the various countries to take part. The journey visited South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, with a recreational break in Hawaii.
(Hawaii was, of course, never a part of the British Empire, or the Commonwealth … just, at that time, a good place for a holiday, and a break from the hard work of the tour)
David Suchet followed Christie’s route as closely as he could, seeing some of things Christie would have seen, although a lot of them were long gone. He writes descriptively of these things, and lavishly illustrated it with his own photographs, as well as some of Christie’s.
Like Michael Palin in Venezuela, which I posted about not long ago, these are inserted in the text, not all bundled together at the halfway point of the book. You may remember that I got that book from the library, then saw the TV series, and discussed whether the book or the TV series should be dealt with first.
Here, I saw the TV series, then read the book. In this case, the book contained much more information; little biographical pieces about Christie and Suchet … and, importantly, the part Suchet’s wife, who I don’t think was mentioned in the TV programmes, played in it.
I suppose the reason is the makers of TV programmes must get a much as they can into the time they’re allowed, and much must be omitted; with a book, you can take as long as you like to read it.
Travelrat's Travels 
