Hercule Poirot and his 'leetle grey cells' make a welcome return to the screen this month. Steve Pratt talks to the man who has made the role his own.

COME December 20, the day filming ends on the TV adaptation of Death On The Nile, actor David Suchet will say goodbye to Hercule Poirot. But not, hopefully, for good. "When I hear the word wrap, he will die - but not be buried," he says of the Belgian detective with the fussy manner and twirly moustache.

There are 16 more Agatha Christie stories featuring Poirot to film and he wants to star in all of them, with one proviso. "I'll only do the last book last because that's where he dies," he says.

The sleuth's return in four feature-length films is the result of a deal giving ITV and LWT the rights to dramatise the entire Christie collection, including both the Poirot and Miss Marple thrillers.

Before that, it had looked as if the TV Poirot was as dead as one of the murder victims whose deaths he investigates. Suchet, who first played him in 1987, was as shocked as anyone to discover that he'd been killed off.

"I read that and was very upset because there's a great audience for Poirot and it was beginning to sell across the world. It's shown in 66 countries and, with ten million viewers in each, that's a lot of people," he says.

He reports that Poirot is even becoming cool. What used to be regarded as comfy viewing, appealing to an older audience, is attracting younger viewers, judging by the number of letters from teenagers in his mailbag these days. "I was in South London recently and two cars hooted as they went passed me. The windows wound down and there were very young black Londoners inside. I looked and they went, 'Hey, Poirot'. I thought, 'this is really great'," he recalls.

Taking on the character 16 years ago must have seen a bit of a poisoned chalice for the former Royal Shakespeare Company actor as he had to compete with memories of Albert Finney and, more especially, Peter Ustinov who'd previously played the role. Suchet has made it very much his own, not least because he takes his work very seriously - and wants to be taken seriously in return.

That's reflected in his film career which could probably have been bigger if he'd lowered his standards or settled for playing terrorist after terrorist on account of his looks.

'I've had to say no to a lot of Hollywood films on that level. I take my work more seriously," he says. "I'd like to do more because, for some strange reason, being considered a serious film actor seems to up the ante. You have to ask yourself why you became an actor in the first place.

"The greatest film I said no to was Scandal. I was asked to play John Profumo, and the more I said no, the more noughts went on the offer. I couldn't do it because John Profumo was alive. I didn't want to play that aspect of the man from which he was trying to exonerate himself and do better work in his life.

"I do have a set of principles by which I live and endeavour to follow them, until I'm on the breadline. I try not to do things just for money. I won't say I never do because that would be foolish."

He was a relative latecomer to TV. An actor since 1969, he worked on stage and didn't have his first major small screen role for 15 years "because the theatre was my career". Television took over after he took the lead in a series about Freud and an adaptation of Tom Sharpe's comic novel Blott On The Landscape in the mid-1980s.

He has an associate producer credit on the new Poirot series. "It gives me a little more hands on control. Power is not what one is really after. It's to have a little bit of input, of say over scripts, the nature of the piece on a day-to-day basis," he says.

"Really from a creative point of view, it's meeting directors and being listened to not just as an actor but as someone who has a title. Therefore you are listened to in a different way."

He likes returning to Poirot - this time after a gap of four years - because he's a fun character to play, unlike Freud. "When I played him in 1983 I said he was a tenant I could never evict, implying that (a) I wanted to evict him and (b) that I couldn't get rid of him. But with Poirot he sits happily inside of me as a tenant and I'm quite happy to keep him renting my space," he says.

"Yes, he's a pain. He's an obsessive compulsive to the extent he can be really irritating. He's pompous, arrogant, believes he's the best. He's so clean and tidy, he's unbearable. He's warm, doesn't like snobs, likes the people below stairs not above stairs.

"He's very gentle and has no hidden agendas when talking to women. He wishes he'd got married, he's lonely. There's a lot to this little man that makes him interesting and great fun to be."

He's pleased the writers of the TV films are now taking him into very interesting areas. The first new story, Five Little Pigs, shows him using his psychological skills to help solve the mystery. The approach may be different but, as far as he's concerned, Poirot can't change his personality.

"There are collectors all over the world now, and if I was to appear in shorts and go through hula-hoops it would be a great sadness to them and I'm very aware of that," he says.

"More important than that is that Agatha Christie doesn't change him. Over all the novels, although they span nearly 30 years, she never changes him one little bit, and neither must I. It's known as Agatha Christie's Poirot not David Suchet's Poirot. I want to be as loyal as I can to the person who created him."

At present, Suchet is in Egypt shooting Death On The Nile for TV, something of a challenge as the novel has already been filmed for the cinema featuring Ustinov's Poirot. That does make it a challenge, he admits, but doesn't think about it like that as he's making it.

"We are not there to compete," he says. "I have never approached any role competitively in that way. As a classical theatre actor I've been playing roles that have been played many times."

He recently collected his OBE from Buckingham Palace and is proud to have received the award. "It gives one a certain credibility because actors have been rather downgraded. In this country they are regarded as luvvies. I've never been one to appreciate that. I think it's an easy way to go. If one is working well as an actor it's a very hard and taxing job," he says.

"My OBE came in Her Majesty's birthday honours and was nothing political for which I am grateful. I'm delighted that when I was given it, Her Majesty said how much pleasure not only Poirot had given to her but my work overall."

* Poirot: Five Little Pigs is on ITV1 on December 14 at 9pm. Sad Cypress is being shown on Boxing Day. The Hollow and Death On The Nile will be shown next year.