Henry Goodman talks about bringing Hercule Poirot to the stage

 

Henry Goodman has received near universal acclaim for his portrayal of Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express that opened in Chichester last week. Describing the Belgian sleuth as “a cop with a conscience, a detective with dignity”, earlier this month Goodman took a break from his hectic rehearsal schedule to speak with me about the production.

You can read my 5* review of Chichester's Murder on the Orient Express here

Henry Goodman returns to the Chichester stage this month, leading the cast on a newly-written version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. One of the crime-writer’s classic yarns, the story has been committed to screen numerous times. Now, for the first time, in Ken Ludwig’s adaptation, the murder mystery is to be performed live on stage, with Goodman waxing up his moustache to step into the role of famed detective Hercule Poirot. 

“What is so exciting about the challenge of this story is Poirot. We all know I’m standing on the shoulders of giants – Kenneth Branagh, David Suchet, Peter Ustinov, John Malkovich, Albert Finney and Alfred Molina have all played him on screen – but lockdown gave me the time to read quite a lot of the novels and look at all the films. I didn’t do this to nick ideas, although there might be the odd thing that inspired me, but to soak myself up in Poirot and try to understand why he is so important to people. Why did Christie fall in love with him? I see Poirot as a figure of hope and this adaptation enhances that. I’m in my 70s, so it’s an older man who is saying: ‘This was the case that really was unique in my life. Come back and have a look at it with me.’

“Why is Poirot so refreshing, and why is he able to say things about the British that the British can’t say about themselves? It’s not just that he’s got an odd walk, or that he’s slightly eccentric in his speech, or that he is a foreigner out of place amongst all these people because in this story there are a lot of foreigners all trapped on a train who are from Russia, Sweden and Hungary. No, the interesting, exotic thing is it that this blend of cultures makes him act differently to how he does when he is with the English. Ludwig has been very clever about keeping alive the whodunnit and the questioning, but also in allowing me to observe different nationalities and different presumed attitudes. He’s not just a cop with a conscience, he is a man with a moral strength, and that’s why this case is so important to him as he invites the audience to go back and explore it with him.”

Previous Poirots have all been on film or TV where the camera can be close-up on every hair on his moustache. Here, we are in a 1300-seat auditorium, which Goodman last appeared at in 2010 when he played the role of Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Prime Minister. “Live performance doesn’t necessarily mean melodrama, because it’s a wonderfully powerful and intimate space, but it’s theatre not film,” says Henry. “That means not ‘bigness’, but a different type of laser-focus on certain things that a camera can cheat on. The camera can suggest a little shot through a window or a lingering dolly shot or all sorts of things, but we have to make it happen in a different way.”

Speaking about the historical context of the story, Goodman continued: “I am very conscious that it’s set in the 1930s just after the Nazi rise of 1933. Although it’s a murder mystery, and Ken’s been very strong on the thriller element of working out what happens when and where, there are certain social attitudes built into Christie in her time. Some of these tend towards the colonial and imperialist. However, these people are trapped on a train in the ‘30s. I don’t want to give anything away, but towards the end of the play they are revealed to be acting in a particular light of current events. There are the attitudes of the thirties: of nobility, royalty, a Russian princess, an American actress. These are the characters in the novel, so they’re nothing new, but we have intensified the contrast between them, creating a strong insight into the attitudes of the time, which speak to us now because here we are with Russia invading Ukraine. In the ‘30s that’s exactly what was going on – an invasion of Europe.”

In 1997 Goodman brought Broadway’s Billy Flynn to London in Kander and Ebb’s Chicago. I ask if there are any parallels between playing a ruthless criminal defence lawyer and an investigating detective?

“I’ve played a lot of manipulative nasty people, but the reason these roles are so interesting to play, and why people enjoy reading criminal novels and dealing with dark stuff, is that there’s something charismatic about them. Flynn is manipulative, while Poirot discovers other people’s manipulation, and that is a joy to play. Poirot is passionate about his moral certitude in a world that is in danger.”

Goodman grew up in the East End and worked a pitch selling watches on Petticoat Lane. He landed his first role in 1960 in a film called Conspiracy of Hearts. He was 10. “The film was about little kids being rescued from a concentration camp by nuns. My picture was in Woman’s Weekly – the first image of myself on film was standing behind barbed wire as a little boy in a concentration camp. These things go very deep.

You can read my 5* review of Chichester's Murder on the Orient Express here

Runs until 4th June at Chichester, then tours to Theatre Royal, Bath

This interview was first published in the Jewish News

Photos of Henry Goodman by Johan Persson

Skyfall - Review

On general release, certificate 12A

****

Skyfall is the 23^rd film in the James Bond franchise and as has been widely reported, is released to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of  Dr No, the first in the series. It’s a dark movie, featuring a Bond who, in the words of director Sam Mendes is a “combination of lassitude, boredom, depression [and] difficulty with what he's chosen to do for a living”.

The acting in Skyfall is outstanding. Whilst Daniel Craig continues to refine and define his interpretation of 007 the film introduces the elite of Britain's performing talent, the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw, to the various echelons of Judi Dench's MI6. Noted theatre critic Mark Shenton tweeted on seeing the film of the legacy owed to British theatre by world cinema. He is not wrong. Shenton further points out that several of these names have already gone so far as to have reached the pinnacle of playing Hamlet within their stage careers. In the current climate of public spending cuts Mendes is clearly leaving this Government department very ably staffed, pending the next Bond instalment. To witness the interaction between these performers, including Javier Bardem as the villain and even a cameo from Albert Finney towards the film’s conclusion, sees the movie mirror the stellar casting that the Harry Potter franchise has consistently attracted over the years.

Whilst the script is biting, witty and sharp, the plot disappoints and to describe the story in even the remotest detail risks spoiling. The evolution of this yarn has had a chequered path as MGM’s finances wobbled during the film’s development and it shows. The plot ultimately evolves into a British based version of Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner's The Bodyguard, an unquestionably well acted but nonetheless unfulfilling narrative.

For the fans, the classic ingredients of Bond are all there. The lines, THAT tune, and an outstanding opening sequence filmed in Turkey are all an absolute delight. Bond’s women are stylish and sexy as well as being thoughtfully fleshed out as characters, though perhaps the film could have cut back on some of the topless nudity. There is only so much of Daniel Craig’s chest that one can bear to watch over the course of two plus hours.  The film also largely plays out in London and the UK and again it is pleasing to see so much of the capital city and the nation's landscapes being exploited by Mendes in this 50^th anniversary tribute.

Whilst the photography and the performances shine, some of the action sequences and visual effects disappoint. Relatively early in the movie when a prominent London building is the target for a terrorist explosion, the Bond special effects team fail to deliver a convincing blast. It has also been widely trailed that the film features a tube train crashing. When this moment occurs, the visual effects involved in capturing the destruction of the (clearly model) train carriages are poor. The producers need to bear in mind that modern audiences have sophisticated tastes. They are accustomed to, for example,  both the excellence of the Harry Potter visual effects and also the outstanding work of James Cameron, so when in 2012, the audience is presented with a crashing Underground train that looks as authentic as Spielberg’s shark from the 1970’s, they are entitled to feel cheated. At the risk of being accused of pedantry, a minor point of location credibility also extends to the actual tube trains used. A journey in the movie through Temple tube station on the District Line is being made by a deep “tube” train, rather than the more “rectangular” stock that actually serve that line. The film is of course being marketed at a global audience, many of whom will not have the faintest idea of what carriages run on which London Underground lines. But some of that audience will be Londoners and they will watch those scenes with some part of their suspended disbelief (essential for all story telling) being gradually brought back down to earth. And when filmmakers choose to play fast and loose with even the most basic elements of consistency and respect for location, they insult  their audience's intelligence and it can leave a temporarily unsatisfying taste. On a positive note, Bond's on-foot chase of a villain through the foot tunnels of the tube station is the best such sequence since John Landis' An American Werewolf in London including an impressive and much envied slide down a deep Tube escalator. 

The climax of the movie, without revealing anything, is a shoot out between the good guys and the bad guys that relies too heavily on silhouettes machine-gunning each other and lobbing grenades and sticks of dynamite. For this sequence, less would have been more, and again a model of the final building in flames was visually disappointing.

Whilst the opening and closing chapters of this Bond tale are truly striking moments of quality cinema, it is a disappointment that the intervening narrative lacks depth and credibility. Notwithstanding, Mendes and Eon Productions have crafted a worthy and watchable adventure that demands to be savoured on the big screen before it is swallowed up for broadcast on the Sky 007 channel, if only to gasp in amazment at the opening sequence of Bond grappling with a villain on top of a moving train. A classic action movie sequence, captured brilliantly by Mendes and his crew.

James Bond is a very modern icon of very traditional British culture and this film is gloriously British. Mendes however has had his creditable turn at the wheel of this Aston Martin of the movie business. He should park the car and give the keys to Danny Boyle.