Latest news with #DavidSuchet
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tuberous Sclerosis garden wins gold at flower show
A garden that was designed to raise awareness for the Tuberous Sclerosis Association has won a gold medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Jen Donnelly and Catherine Gibbon volunteer at Amersham Hospital in Buckinghamshire and rejuvenate the gardens used by staff and patients. Their "Room to Breathe" garden was inspired by Ms Donnelly's experiences waiting in hospitals for her 15-year-old son Alex, who has Tuberous Sclerosis Complex, to have surgery. After the flower show, the garden will be moved to Amersham Hospital, which will become its permanent home. Tuberous sclerosis is a rare genetic condition that causes mainly benign tumours to develop in different parts of the body, such as the brain, heart, and lungs. Ms Donnelly recalled: "My memory is sitting on a plastic chair in a clinical corridor waiting for news of his operations. "I thought, wouldn't it have been amazing to have a little space outside space. I could've gone to [it] to escape, have a moment to yourself. "So we've created this little corner of a hospital courtyard where a parent could go to and have that moment to themselves." The design won its trophy in the Balcony and Container Garden category. It was created with planting containers off the ground, at various heights, in a 12 square-meter space. A "cocoon-like hanging chair" was included, which Ms Gibbon said evoked the feeling of having "a nice hug you really need when you're in hospital". During the show, the garden was visited by celebrities such as actor Sir David Suchet, Strictly Come Dancing star Nadiya Bychkova and singer Alexandra Burke. Ms Donnelly said: "David Suchet was so lovely and spent so much time with us, talking to the public about why it was important to raise awareness about the condition. The Poirot actor has regularly supported the charity in public. Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X. Designer creates final garden for Chelsea Flower Show Nursery wins fifth gold at Chelsea Flower Show Royals and Beckham attend Chelsea Flower Show The Tuberous Sclerosis Association
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Poirot's on his hols, but all we get is a dreary lecture on the evils of empire: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV
Travels With Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet (More4) Sir David Suchet on a surfboard is quite the mental image. In a striped 1920s bathing costume, the great thespian would be a picture of Hercule Poirot on his holidays. But as the first episode of his Travels With Agatha Christie (More4) took him to Cape Town, the producers fluffed this glorious opportunity. Instead, they obliged him to embark on a dreary circuit of apologies for Britain's heinous imperial past. Sir David, who played the pompous little Belgian detective for 25 years on ITV, was eager to trace Dame Agatha's footsteps around southern Africa. In 1922, she accompanied her husband Archie on a world tour, to champion the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition in London. Her first crime novel, The Mysterious Affair At Styles, had just been published, and Mrs Christie was eagerly soaking up atmosphere for her story The Man In The Brown Suit. On the voyage to the Cape, she took her notebooks and typewriter, and was inspired to send her heroine Anne Beddingfeld on the same sea journey — beset by spies, murderers and jewel thieves, of course. Like Agatha, in Cape Town the actor marvelled at Table Mountain: 'It's as though someone's come along with a big knife and just taken the top right off.' But he ignored the coastline, and with it the chance to inject some real fun into this travelogue. Agatha was fascinated, she wrote, by the 'perfectly entrancing bathing . . . people had short curved boards and came floating in on the waves. 'Surfing looks perfectly easy. It isn't. I got very angry and fairly hurled my plank from me. Nevertheless, I would not be beaten. Quite by mistake I got a good run on my board, and came out delirious with happiness. Surfing is like that. You are either vigorously cursing or else you are idiotically pleased with yourself.' We learned none of this from Sir David, who trundled off instead for a series of lectures on how ghastly the 19th-century diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes was. Three activists introduced themselves as the founders of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which succeeded in getting a statue of the former prime minister of the Cape Colony torn down — sparking a brief fad for statue toppling in Britain, too. Later, he visited Rhodes's home (where he admired a granite bathtub), a diamond workshop (where he admired a hefty sparkler) and Rhodes's grave in Zimbabwe's Matobo National Park (where he admired the view). This trivial tone rather undermined the lectures on injustices inflicted by the British Empire. Anne Beddingfeld, in The Man In The Brown Suit, does actually visit the grave, which means Agatha must also have seen it. Bizarrely, the documentary didn't mention this. By now, the author's travels had been relegated to a footnote in a biography of Rhodes — a man she never met. Sir David did take a moment, though, to buy a wooden giraffe from a stall. Agatha Christie had one just like it, apparently.
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Travels with Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet, review: like watching Paddington Bear on holiday
Given the BBC's recent wheeze, in which they used AI to disinter Agatha Christie and turn her into a creative writing teacher for their Maestro platform, you half-expected Travels with Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet (More4) to be a technologically enhanced mismatched-buddy travelogue in the vein of Travel Man. Just how would Hercule Poirot and his creator get on sharing a yurt in Mongolia or exploring the saunas of Finland? Or, perhaps more appropriately, sailing down the Nile or boarding the Orient Express? Thankfully/sadly (delete according to taste), it is a travelogue like any other. Which means a well-known celebrity is paid to have a whale of a time trotting the globe – in this instance South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and Canada – while smiling politely at knowledgeable locals and telling us how moved and humbled they are to be on a whizzo (fully paid-for) holiday. This one, however, has a terrific excuse. Suchet is following the route of Christie 's own whizzo (fully paid-for) holiday, when, in 1922, she and her husband, Archibald, were invited on a world tour to help promote the upcoming British Empire Exhibition. This first episode saw Suchet in Cape Town, before heading north to the diamond mines of Kimberley and the majesty of Victoria Falls. With the Christies' adventure being one to massage the UK's colonial influence, Suchet was forced to confront some meaty issues – and with it being South Africa and what is now Zimbabwe, in 1922, that meant Cecil Rhodes. Suchet politely described Rhodes's legacy as 'complex and contested', though he struggled to find many locals who found it all that complex. The show's USP took him away from the usual travelogue hotspots, with visits to Rhodes's home and grave, as well as a jaunt to a gargantuan former diamond mine. We got a smattering of the usual hotspots too, with Suchet showing he knew the lingo. Table Mountain: 'Iconic'. Victoria Falls: 'The power of nature!' Following Christie's 1922 route meant the show could unashamedly lean into the linen-suits-and-steam-trains aesthetic, enabling the viewer to indulge their own sepia travel fantasies while also tut-tutting at the imperial shame of it all. Suchet made for an amiable companion, so unfailingly and intensely polite and British that at times it felt like watching Paddington Bear on holiday. One pleasing contrivance was that the diminutive actor took with him the same model of camera his photojournalist grandfather had used, and we were treated to the occasional Suchet holiday snap (black-and-white, elegant, slightly blurred). The programme promised us deeper insight into the young Christie – at the time of the journey she was a happy wife and mother, starting to make small waves in the crime-writing business – but this first episode didn't provide a great deal of it, beyond Suchet occasionally alighting on places and events that might have inspired moments in her novels. The sedate pace and Suchet's enjoyably rich voice-over gave it the occasional tinge of an advert for Viking Cruises. Still, it's a travelogue with a purpose, and an impeccably turned out host, and that is something to be embraced.
Daily Mirror
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Poirot star David Suchet opens up on 'extraordinarily emotional' new series
David Suchet opened up about his new series, Travels with Agatha Christie and Sir David Suchet, which will follow in the footsteps of the iconic novelist Veteran actor Sir David Suchet has revealed that he became "extraordinarily emotional" while filming his new Agatha Christie documentary series. The 79-year-old, renowned for his portrayal of detective Hercule Poirot, appeared on ITV's This Morning to discuss his latest project, Travels with Agatha Christie and Sir David Suchet. In the docuseries, David embarks on a captivating journey, retracing the steps of the legendary novelist. During his conversation with presenters Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, David confessed that holding Agatha's diary entries and reliving her experiences evoked a profound emotional response. One of the highlights of his trip was visiting Victoria Falls in South Africa, which left him awestruck. He explained, "The big thing for me in South Africa, which was extraordinarily emotional, was to witness Victoria Falls." David described feeling the ground vibrate beneath his feet as the water crashed onto the rocks, making him feel tiny in comparison. Ben observed, "You get very emotional throughout this trip," to which David replied, "Well, it was a very emotional trip!" The programme, which was announced nearly a year ago, follows David as he retraces Agatha Christie's remarkable early life journey, reports Wales Online. Sir David Suchet is set to delve deeper into the life of renowned author Agatha Christie, whose works he has intimately known for over two decades, thanks to his iconic portrayal of her famous Belgian detective. In the upcoming documentary, Travels with Agatha Christie and Sir David Suchet, airing on More4 at 9pm on Wednesday, 21st May 2025, viewers can join him on this journey of discovery. Discussing the project earlier, David shared his thoughts: "I feel that [Christie] will be sitting on my shoulders at every moment, urging me on to share her passion for knowledge, travel, archeology, and, of course, mystery." He continued, "She was vivacious. On board the ship, she openly writes in her diary that she was kept up into the early hours with one of the officers on board. The Agatha Christie that I was discovering during my journey was happy. She was a little bit flirty."
Wales Online
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Poirot star admits to feeling 'extraordinarily emotional' as he opens up on new series
Poirot star admits to feeling 'extraordinarily emotional' as he opens up on new series This Morning presenters Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard had the pleasure of speaking to actor Sir David Suchet on his new show, which left him rather 'emotional' This Morning's AI presenter 'crashes' live on air Actor Sir David Suchet has confessed to feeling "extraordinarily emotional" after appearing in a new Agatha Christie series. The 79-year-old actor, famous for playing detective Hercule Poirot, appeared on ITV's This Morning to share news of his new show, Travels with Agatha Christie and Sir David Suchet. The docuseries will follow in the footsteps of legendary novelist Agatha as David goes on a compelling adventure of a lifetime. Talking to This Morning presenters Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley, David admitted that his journey through time was one that provoked an impassioned response as he held onto Agatha's diary entries of her experience. Sir David Suchet appeared on This Morning (Image: ITV ) Article continues below This is a breaking showbiz story and is being constantly updated. Please refresh the page regularly to get the latest news, pictures and videos. You can also get email updates on the day's biggest stories straight to your inbox by signing up for our newsletters.
