Not everything should be over the top. Whilst ‘hysteria’ may be a passable title for a Def Leppard album, it’s no way to live your life day to day. Anyone who has had listened to ‘Love Bites’ or ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ on a regular basis would doubtless agree. In this crazy, mixed up world, there’s still a place for more leisurely pursuits – a gentle stroll along a beach at sunset, a cup of tea and the tele-visual works of Hercule Poirot.
Not everything should be over the top. Whilst ‘hysteria’ may be a passable title for a Def Leppard album, it’s no way to live your life day to day. Anyone who has had listened to ‘Love Bites’ or ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ on a regular basis would doubtless agree. In this crazy, mixed up world, there’s still a place for more leisurely pursuits – a gentle stroll along a beach at sunset, a cup of tea and the tele-visual works of Hercule Poirot.
Agatha Christies’ detective may well be, with the possible exception of Plastic Bertrand, the most famous Belgian of the Twentieth Century. (Perhaps the question could be settled by having both perform a version of “Ça Plane Pour Moi“.) Poirot’s a very particular kind of detective. For starters, Hercule doesn’t pack a piece. Granted, many of the tele-movies in which he stars could probably do with the odd firearm thrown into the mix. I dare say that a Travis Bickle-style sleeve pistol would surprise everyone gathered in the drawing room, but that’s not the point. It’s not in Poirot’s nature to carry ‘heat’.
Instead of blazing away with an assortment of firearms, Poirot deploys the greatest weapon of all – his mind – to solve mysteries. Some might consider it a little quaint, but those people are all sugar-overdosing, attention deficit disorder suffering twerps who wouldn’t know proper television if it came up to them, introduced itself whilst wearing a name tag that reads: ‘Hello, my name is Proper Television’.
Call me old fashioned (or Stuart – I answer to both), but there’s still a place in this day and age for a little bit of cunning, deduction and sturdy sleuthing. Once, a battle of wits was considered the height of entertainment. Such notions have largely become extinct, probably because, when it comes to battles of the wit, too many people are unarmed. Not Hercule, though. He may look like a bean bag with a moustache drawn on, but he’s like a coiled spring.
Not that he doesn’t have his share of detractors. For whilst it may seem hard not to love the guy some have still managed to succeed. Over time he has been variously described as “insufferable”, “detestable, bombastic, tiresome” and as an “ego-centric little creep”. Such utterances could be dismissed as sour grapes had they not been made by Agatha Christie. Perhaps that’s why the dunderheads responsible for the most recent series of ‘Poirot’ have decided to give him something of a makeover.
‘Poirot 2.0’ has a vastly increased budget. This is apparent through an array of outdoor locations that seem to be more than somebody’s backyard. However, they’ve also decided to try and make the eponymous character more interesting by heaping loads of mental anguish on him. If Hamlet was Belgian instead of Danish and had ceased going to the gym, you’d be in the right general neighbourhood. The most recent series of Poirot has gone to great lengths to portray the Belgian detective as a man inside of whom there is a civil war. No longer content to solve mysteries whilst sipping a cup of Early Grey and munching on a ginger snap, he must now struggle to keep it together as seas of emotional turmoil rage inside him. He demonstrates this by way of a wince that could just as easily be the result of passing a kidney stone.
The decision to mess with the formula has ruined things for me. I fear, however, that it is part of a growing trend. There was once a show called ‘Pimp My Ride’. In involved rapper Xzibit taking a clapped-out car and not so much restoring it as turning it into a miniature hotel suite on wheels from 1977. Thus, a dented Ford Cortina that could barely make it down to the shops and back would be wholly transformed as they installed speakers that weighed nearly as much as the car itself and ripped out the back seats to replace them with a Jacuzzi. The whole point of the show was to ease the transition between the ridiculous and the sublime. The absurdity was part of the beauty. Today’s TV executives, however, seem obsessed with pimping old television programs. However, whereas Xzibit plied his wares on cars that were pieces of junk otherwise destined for the scrapheap, when this principle is applied to television programs instead of Cortinas, it invariably invokes an adage that begins ‘if it ain’t broke…..’
It’s not just Poirot either. Hawaii Five-O has suffered a similar fate. Frankly, you can’t call anything ‘Hawaii Five-O’ if Jack Lord and his extraordinary hair are not involved. I’d even accept Jack being wheeled out ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ style, for a guest appearance but he’s nowhere to be seen. Instead, you’ve got a bunch of models who look like they just escaped from an underwear catalogue pretending to be uphold a tradition of which they are simply not worthy. Same goes for the attempt to resurrect Beverly Hills 90210. What’s next? Murder She Wrote starring Paris Hilton? In the pimped up version, Jessica Fletcher would a heavily tattooed, cocktail-drinking, pistol-packing broad who writes mystery stories as part of a community service order. The Tom Bosley role would go to Shia La Beouff. Lord help us.
So back off – leave Poirot alone. The fact that he is so obviously out of time is all part of his Belgian charm. For those that love him, this is no great mystery at all.