Agatha Christie & David Suchet, Traveling Together a Century Apart

In 2013, actor Sir David Suchet hung up the mustache and accent and retired from the role of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot after twenty-five years of playing the character on screen. However, his enthusiasm for the Queen of Crime, author Agatha Christie (1890–1976) has never dimmed, and a decade after Agatha Christie's Poirot ended, he is back, in Travels with Agatha Christie & David Suchet. Following her written account of the globe-trotting trip she took on the brink of her career breakthrough following the release of her first Poirot mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Suchet reveals the younger Agatha as adventurous, curious, and perceptive.

Still married to her first husband, officer Archie Christie, the future Dame Agatha accompanied him on his appointment to the British Empire Exhibition Mission in 1922 to drum up support for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition. The itinerary took them to South Africa, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, plus the Christies swung by Hawaii for a surfing holiday. (Agatha could catch a wave with the best!) It was the trip of a lifetime.

Suchet shares his love of photography, nature, and history as he visits the places on Christie’s itinerary, some of which have changed very little; even staying in the same hotels. He meets with museum curators, artists, academics, and Christie fans. But he also visits places Christie wouldn’t have seen or even known about, and explores the post-colonial legacy which has shaped the lives of those living there now.