How Agatha killed off plot for Poirot romance

AS A committed bachelor, Hercule Poirot would never let an affair of the heart get in the way of a murder investigation.

And now it has emerged that his creator Agatha Christie had to step in to keep it that way, by stopping Hollywood turning her inscrutable Belgian sleuth into a romantic leading man.

In 1936, the author refused to let MGM Studios add a love story to its adaptation of her novel The ABC Murders, which had been released that year.

Her intervention – which resulted in the project being cancelled – is revealed in a new three-part documentary about the author, presented by the historian Lucy Worsley, which begins on Friday on BBC2.

Christie biographer Laura Thompson last night said: ‘Poirot is completely sort of sexless isn’t he, and I think that is part of his appeal.’