Poirot Hallowe'en Party (Season 12 Episode 2, 2010) ft. Dr Josep Chanza

[00:00:10] Hello and welcome to Fetch the Smelling Salts. I'm Alice and this is our podcast all about period dramas from movies and TV series from every era and all around the world. What we love to do is make your period drama watching experience more enjoyable with history and production facts.

[00:00:30] And today I did all that by myself because Kim is not here and we are in our second part of our spookstorical extravaganza and I am joined by a very spooky guest who's making spooky sounds. Hello. Oh dear me. Hi Josep. Hello. How's it going?

[00:01:00] It's good. It's going good. So today I'm joined by Dr. Josep Chanza who is a lecturer in social geography at Newcastle University and my pal. And look, I didn't realize that you had moved to Newcastle like a while ago. But to be fair, like you're around. The last time I saw you was a few weeks ago like at my local bus stop.

[00:01:25] I can't stay away from Edinburgh. What can I say? It's also around the corner. But can I say, you know, in Newcastle there's a very spooky thing which is the vampire rabbit. Have you heard of this? I'm sorry, what? The vampire rabbit. Yeah? It's terrifying. You have to come and witness it. This is something that you can come and witness. Yes, yes, absolutely. This is in situ. This is on a facade of a historic building.

[00:01:50] You can come and see a rabbit that comes alive every night and watches over the nearby graves. Oh, that's a myth. It's terrifying. It's right up my alley. You have to come and see it. Is it, do you know, is it a vampire to humans or is it vampiric toward other animals? Like is it just, is it strictly rabbit diet? I think it doesn't discriminate. Okay.

[00:02:17] I think humans, non-humans, animals, ghosts, all sorts. Awesome. Yeah. So, Giuseppe, you and I did our PhDs at the same time. We did. In vastly different subjects. Oh. Because I was social anthropology, your human geography. Yeah. I mean, how did we even interact? We studied, so we both studied and we wrote about religion. We both love Agatha Christie.

[00:02:46] We both love queried dramas. Because, listeners won't maybe realize this, but actually you and I look almost exactly the same. In what way? Physically? Yeah. No. What? Stop breaking the illusion. Wait a minute. The thing is that you have more hair on the top. I have more hair on the bottom of my face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Are we related? What the heck?

[00:03:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically the same person. Basically the same person, absolutely. So, I asked you to come and join me today because every year we watch at least one, usually two, spooky period dramas during Halloween, during spooky season. Right. And this year we wanted to have kind of a cozy one. I feel like we didn't.

[00:03:38] So, our other installment this year was the docudrama Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. Oh, wow. I don't know if you're familiar with that. No, I haven't seen that. It's really good. I highly recommend it. It's fun. It's a rewriting of American Civil War history with Abraham Lincoln in which they like give him a black best friend, but also like straightwash him. And it's a docudrama?

[00:04:09] No, it's not. I'm like, wait a minute. I can see Abraham Lincoln. It's a very silly vampire movie. Okay, okay, okay. And there's no kisses or anything with him and his friend or, you know, intimate. No, he only kisses girl. Just girl kisses. I know.

[00:04:28] Although, his presumed lover, Mr. Speed, is in the film and they have him like living in his shop, but they don't live together and they don't share a bed and they don't kiss. Well, it's a little bit like Captain Hastings and Poirot. They live together, they share food and newspapers, they fix each other's ties, but nothing is said. We don't know if they share a bed.

[00:04:56] Technically, Captain Hastings has his own place, right? He's never there. Absolutely, he's never there. And has his own wife, but he's never with her. We never see her. Yeah, she's in Argentina. It's fine. Yes. Yes. And, but today, okay, today we are talking about a Poirot episode, a feature length Poirot episode called The Halloween Party. And this is our second Poirot that we've done because we did a Poirot Christmas. Yeah, I listened to it. Aw, great.

[00:05:26] Very cool. So, you know, we love Poirot. We really stand Poirot. It's also, I think this is our third Agatha Christie because we also had on the brilliant Anne from Vulgar History podcast to talk to us about the new version of Towards Zero a while ago. So if you want to hear all of our Agatha Christie stuff, then you can go back and listen to that. You're good. We love Poirot so much. One of the reasons, so this is an excuse to talk more about Poirot.

[00:05:55] This is an excuse to do some really cozy Halloween snuggling. And also, this is like a good time to be talking about Poirot because there is a new, as of this recording in October of 2026, there is a new Poirot that is coming out next year called Hercule. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, okay, okay, straight away. You see your, mm-hmm. I'm just a little bit. Your face is telling me everything.

[00:06:22] Yes, I'm just a little bit unconvinced and a tiny bit upset, actually. Have you seen the face of this new Poirot? I have seen his face. It belongs to Edward Blumeau. Yes. He seems like a very nice man. He's gorgeous. He's a gorgeous, thin, young man. No, no. I mean, there is something in his look, right?

[00:06:45] There is something in his, the way he looks at the camera, you know, from kind of below that it's, you know, it can be Poirot, but he's just too hot. Yeah. Okay. So we love period dramas. We love consuming period dramas. And so we say stuff like, oh, yeah, sure, they can just adapt all these stories as many times as they want. Give us as many Jane Austens. Give us as many Brontes. Give us as much Agatha Christie as we can consume.

[00:07:12] But then when it comes down to it, when we're offered these things, I'm often like, no, no, don't do that. Not like that. Exactly. I'm very spoiled. According to a BBC article I read, Hercule will, quote, center around three of Christie's early stories. And this is being produced in collaboration with the Christie estate.

[00:07:39] So hopefully they'll have some trueness to the source material. So I'm thinking, we talked about this in our Christmas episode. We did sort of a background, a bio of Poirot. Poirot, because we know that Poirot, prior to coming to England, he was already very established in his career. He was a famous police detective.

[00:08:05] And then he was part of the Belgian resistance during the First World War. And he was a prisoner of war. So that's all really interesting. To me, if we were going to do a young Poirot, I would love to see that. We also, there is an episode of Poirot in which we see an early case of his back when he is in Belgium. Yes. And this is connected to a jewelry theft. And when he meets his one love interest. Yeah, his paramour. The countess. Yes, the countess.

[00:08:33] The mysterious countess that he really adores. But she is a kind of love interest in the shape of a Catholic saint. You know, he is devoted to her. Yes. I'm never sure if he would get jiggy with her. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. You don't know if it's a smoochy kiss kind of thing. I don't think so.

[00:08:57] I'm going to put a little pin in this because this aspect of Poirot is something that I think we have wanted to explore together. And the other reason that we wanted to talk about this particular Poirot episode. Just to say a little bit more about Hercule. The first episode that we ever see Poirot in, the first story that he appears in is the mysterious affair at Stiles.

[00:09:23] That is when he comes over as a refugee, meets Captain Hastings again after meeting him during the war. So if there are three stories going to be included in this series, I'm guessing Mysterious Ferret Stiles has got to be one of them. The first one. Yeah. We'll see what else. A bunch more of the cast has been announced and one of them has to be Captain Hastings. I don't know which one.

[00:09:50] Possibly an actor called Henry Ashton who was in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I'm guessing that because he is a blonde white man. Oh. So it's possible. But there are some other young men who have been cast who could be Captain Hastings. There's Calvin Demba. There's also Jack Gleeson has been cast in this. Jack Gleeson, who's Joffrey in Game of Thrones. I don't see him being Captain Hastings.

[00:10:14] And also a random little bit that I gleaned from IMDb is that Ned Campbell is going to be playing Cecil Beaton. Oh. Jack Gleeson looks like he's going to be Captain Jap. No. Absolutely. You think? I mean, if you Google Jack Gleeson, he has a mustache. He has messy hair. It's just Captain Jap. Just put him in a long camel trench coat and it's Jap. Yeah. Jap.

[00:10:43] We have this on record now. So we can go back and see if you're right. I think Henry Ashton looks like a good candidate for Captain Hastings. He has that blondness, that kind of slight look of bewilderment. That's required. He has to be a little bit confused about what is going on at all times. Like whether he's ordering dinner or like it doesn't matter. Driving a car. Yeah.

[00:11:14] The one thing that does bother me about it that I'm really concerned about is that a young Poirot, if we were going to be seeing an actual young Poirot, we would have to set this way sooner than the end of the First World War. Because he's already, he is retired. Like he comes over as a retired police detective. But I think there could be a number of stories told about that retirement.

[00:11:40] You know, I think you mentioned this in your podcast that in the police force, you may retire very young. It could be that he sustained a wound. It could be that, you know, his famous shoes that he always wears that are almost orthopedic. It could be that something about his feet or something that he's been wounded. He does in this episode complain about his feet being sore. Yeah. And his stubbornness about those feet, you know.

[00:12:07] Poirot is stubborn about many things, but I think the shoes could be something that point to something that he needs to do. Yeah. Yeah. If he had some kind of injury, maybe a foot injury in the war, you could see him not speaking about it. Yeah. And also it would go to some extent to make us Poirot lovers feel a bit sorry for this new character and think a bit like, oh, I'll give him a try. Go on. You know. Yeah. He's ill.

[00:12:36] He doesn't feel well. Oh no. A young sickly Poirot? What a weird thing. Yeah. So shall we talk about this episode in particular? Let's talk about Halloween party. Because it's a wild ride. My goodness. This is from season 12, by the way. So this is a much later season. This is season 12, episode 2. This is in the thin mustache era.

[00:13:03] This is when his mustache has gotten a little bit slightly anemic. Yeah. It doesn't have that lovely, boofy shape to it. I think the youthfulness of Poirot has completely left him. Yeah. And, you know, we see him, I think, you know, the thinness of the mustache. He's a little bit heavier. He's slower. At one point in the episode, he needs to be helped to cross a bridge.

[00:13:28] You know, there's an indication here that, you know, he's reaching an age where his youthfulness has completely left him. You know, the campness of the walk and of certain gestures, you know, has diminished a lot. So yeah, an older man. Yeah. A little bit more religious as well, outwardly. Yes. Definitely. He loves to be. As the series progresses, you see that there's a lot more presence of the rosary.

[00:13:58] In this episode, at the beginning and at the end, he makes very clear that Halloween is for lighting candles for the dead. Yes. It's not for horror stories. You know, so yeah. No, he's not entertaining it. He doesn't have a sense of humor about Halloween in this episode, really. Not at all. So let me summarize this show. We're starting with Ariadne Oliver. Mm-hmm. I love her. I love her. I love that she's essentially an Agatha Christie insert. She is. I love Zoe Wanamaker.

[00:14:28] Oh, God. She's brilliant. She's perfect in this role. Oh, I mean, I saw her in, what's that play called? Where she plays a reporter. You saw a play. Her Girl Friday. I saw her. Oh, yeah. In her Girl Friday at the National Theatre many years ago. And she was incredible. So, yeah. She hasn't lost it. The episode begins with Ariadne Oliver. She's in an English village called Woodley Common.

[00:14:56] And she's preparing for a village Halloween party with her pal Judith at the big fancy home of the widowed Mrs. Rowena Drake. So, Ariadne is in town because she's supposed to give a talk at the local WI, the Women's Institute. And she's staying with her pal Judith and Judith's daughter Miranda, who is like 12, 11, 12. She's tween. Yeah. She's pretending to be older, though, I think. Yeah.

[00:15:25] So, the party is a fancy dress Halloween party for all the village children. But Miranda isn't there because she's at home in bed with a cold. And Ariadne is like catching that cold as well. So, we meet a classic cast of characters from the village who have all come to this children's party for some reason, even though none of them are like parents to the children present. This is just like the hot party to be at.

[00:15:53] There's Rowena Drake's adult children who are absolutely awful human beings. There's the vicar and the parish lesbian. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry. I mean organist. Niece. And then there's Mrs. Reynolds, who is described as the local martyr. And she's there with her two children, Leopold and Joyce.

[00:16:18] And while the kids are bobbing for apples in the library, Joyce, who is dressed as a bee, has a chat with Ariadne about her crime novels and then boldly proclaims, I saw a murder once. Mm-hmm. And everyone in the room, including all the adults, are like, fuck off, Joyce, fuck you. They are very unkind to Joyce, just because she's a little liar. Poor Joyce. Poor Joyce. Everyone fucking hates Joyce.

[00:16:44] Also, she's dressed in this really thick felt bumblebee dress, sweating like a, oh my God, poor thing, anyway. She was not having a good party. She was just trying to liven it up a little bit with some murder talk. So she explains that she didn't realize it was a murder at the time because she was younger, but now she knows it was a murder.

[00:17:08] Meanwhile, Hercule Poirot is at home in his flat in London with his butler, George, because he's in his George era. Oh, yes. And he tells George that at this time of year in Belgium, it is customary to light candles in remembrance of the dead and not tell the stories macabre. Oh, no. He turns off the radio halfway through a very spooky story that George was enjoying very much. George was just trying to have a nice Halloween, too.

[00:17:39] Oh. But yeah, as we said, he does not really have a sense of humor about these things in his George era, unfortunately. He doesn't have Captain Hastings to keep things light for him, keep things in perspective. Or Miss Lemon to tidy up his cases and folders and files. I bet Miss Lemon would like a Halloween story on the radio. And would he dare turn off the radio for Miss Lemon? Absolutely not. I think he would want to see her reaction to things and then, you know, scold her for it.

[00:18:10] So as the party at Mrs. Drake's heats up, an old lady dressed like a witch breaks in for a hot second and then gets thrown out. And at 9.40 p.m., the kids start playing Snapdragon, the worst game ever invented for children. Is that a real game? It's a real game. And it does date back to Tudor times, to like the court of Henry VIII. And it was played all the way, definitely up through Victorians at least.

[00:18:39] We've got Dickens talking about Snapdragon. And apparently into the, I don't know. So this book was written in the 60s. And you might, you could still be like setting children on fire in the 60s. Yeah. It's before the advent of health and safety. Definitely. I looked into Snapdragon a little bit because it just seems so unfathomable to me. And it is, so it's this metal plate filled with raisins and almonds usually. And it's brandy.

[00:19:09] So it's sugar and brandy that are lit on fire. The brandy creates a blue flame, which I thought was more dangerous than an orange flame. But according to an article I read in Atlas Obscura, in which they reproduced all of this, the blue flame produced by the burning off of the alcohol and brandy, because it's like a low alcohol content, kind of liquor.

[00:19:33] The blue flame is much less hot than like a candle flame. Oh, I see. So they're not sticking their little fingers into really, really hot fire. It's more of like, it must still be dangerous. Obviously, it must still be hot and a hazard. And you must still like be able to burn yourself quite easily. But it's not like sticking your hand into a fire in a fireplace. I'm almost disappointed. Yeah.

[00:20:03] I thought these kids were really burning their fingers. But also, have you seen this game happens in, is it the library? It's in a room that is very plush. It has curtains and cushions and rugs. And I'm like, if a raisin... Yeah. If a raisin just jumps off for some reason onto the curtains... A sticky raisin. Yeah, they're all doomed. On fire. Love you being disappointed in children not burning themselves. That's classic.

[00:20:33] Oh, we'll put a little like recipe for Snapdragon on our Instagram as well. But we claim no liability. If you actually try and you burn your ass down. All right. So while they're playing Snapdragon, Ariadne sees Rowena drop a big vase of flowers in the hall outside the library, which gets Rowena all wet. And at 10 p.m., it's time for the party to end.

[00:20:57] And an unfortunate maid finds Joyce Reynolds in the library, drowned to death in the apple-bobbing tub. Poor little thing. Poor little thing. A bumblebee. Dripping. Yeah, her like bumblebee antenna dripping over the side. It's so awful. This is, I think, one of the... In terms of victims, this is probably one of the harshest Poirots.

[00:21:24] I can't think off the top of my head of any other... I think there's a teenage murder in one other Poirot story, but I can't think of another one of children this young being murdered. No, yeah. And we're all like, yeah. It happened. Yeah. So Ariadne loses no time. She rings Poirot immediately, like from the phone in the hall and tells him what's gone down.

[00:21:53] And he's on the next train in the morning. He's very bored. Yeah. He's got to stop snipping at George. He needs to go and do something. Now, sitting across from Poirot on the train is a chatty man called Michael Garfield, a gardener who used to live in Woodley Common, but has been away in Athens and now is coming back. And he advises Poirot to speak to Mrs. Goodbody if he wants all the local gossip. That's a fun coincidence.

[00:22:22] So Poirot goes to stay with Ariadne at her pal Judith's. By the way, Judith is also a widow. Her husband was a pilot who died in an accident when Miranda was a baby. Now she lives in... I didn't clock it until this rewatch. It occurred to me... This woman lives in like a gorgeous four-bedroom house. It's got to be at least four bedrooms if they've got Ariadne Oliver and Poirot staying while Miranda gets her own room.

[00:22:50] So, you know, where's she getting the money for that? I want to know. These days, no widow of a pilot has got a four-bed in the home counties. And wouldn't you know it, while Miranda has recovered from her cold, Ariadne has fully caught it, so she's knocked flat in bed. And that keeps her helpfully in one spot while Poirot commences his investigation.

[00:23:16] I really like the way that they are such good friends that he can see her in her nightgown. You know what I mean? With her hair down and everything. With her hair down and everything. She doesn't mind. I'm like, this is nice. You know, this... She's not one to really be fussed by that kind of thing, though. She's like, you've just got to get on with things. It's got to tell you about the case. Obviously, Poirot's first port of call is to the local inspector, who doesn't even... He doesn't even get a name. He's very generic looking.

[00:23:44] He's also typically dismissive of Poirot's efforts, despite knowing who he is. And he insists that they're looking for a roving lunatic and or tramp. Poirot goes to the scene of the crime, Rowena Drake's house, which is attached to a very large and pristinely done garden with lots of fine looking geometric hedges.

[00:24:10] And the garden was done years ago by Michael Garfield, your man from the train. And now he's back and he likes to trim it up a bit in his spare time, which seems to be all the time. He does not seem to have a job. Where's he living? I keep wondering throughout the episode why this guy is trimming and chopping. And I mean, has he got a contract? I don't think so. Yeah.

[00:24:39] I think he's basically homeless. Yeah. He looks a bit homeless. But has access to garden equipment. Yeah. But then he was in Athens. I'm like, OK, so you've been doing some kind of grand tour. Yeah. But now you're back trimming bushes. If he has a house, we don't see it. No. Taking Michael's advice, Poirot goes to see Mrs. Goodbody, who was the old witch who was bounced out of the children's party. I love her.

[00:25:05] And she gives Poirot the lowdown on all the people what had did died in the village in the last circa like five years. Yes. So first there's Beatrice White. She had been Joyce's schoolteacher. She drowned in an apparent accident that was said to involve drinking. It's also said that she was very thick with the church organist. Sorry, I mean lesbian. Yeah. Elizabeth Whitaker.

[00:25:34] I love how the gossip says she was thick with blah, blah, blah. And then she goes very thick. And she's rocking. I love it. She takes her job seriously. Second, death. Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe, the elderly aunt of Rowena Drake from whom Rowena inherited the house and garden.

[00:26:00] She died of seemingly natural causes, but Mrs. Goodbody, who used to be her charwoman, she has her suspicions. Third, Leslie Ferrier. He was a clerk working for the solicitor who did Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe's will. And he was stabbed in the street. That's it. Just a run of the mill stabbing. Oh, I guess he was also dating. He was dating Rowena's daughter or something.

[00:26:29] So Poirot goes to meet that solicitor and he learns that Leslie Ferrier was a shifty guy who had a criminal record. He also learns there was so much drama around Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe's will because in it there was a surprise codicil. You know, there's no better drama than documents drama.

[00:26:52] So there was a codicil to the will and it left everything to her Czechoslovakian au pair, Olga Semenov. And unclear what an au pair in this context does. Like a housekeeper? A housekeeper, helper. Companion. You know, you get a total stranger in your house to give you your vital medication because she suffered from the heart. Miss Llewellyn, what's her name? Sorry.

[00:27:21] Llewellyn Smythe. Llewellyn Smythe. She suffered from the heart. So she took tablets and she got this woman from Czechoslovakia. By the way, her name should be Olga Semynova, right? I mean, Semynova, that's a man. I thought, okay, there's going to be, when I watched it for the first time, I thought there's going to be a reveal at some point that this beautiful Olga was in fact a man because of the surname. So I read this a very, very long time ago. And I remember only a few differences between this and the book.

[00:27:51] But I think one of them is that Olga was not from Czechoslovakia. I think she was from kind of the Baltics. I don't know if that makes a difference to her surname. That's a good thing to pick up on. So, so, so, this codicil. Yes. The family were shocked when they heard about it. But the codicil was examined and it turned out to be a forgery. And after that was revealed, Rowena Drake got the house and Olga disappeared. Everyone assumed she fucked off back to Czechoslovakia.

[00:28:21] Having learned all this, Poirot gets to that stage of the investigation where he just kind of hangs around getting to know everyone by like going to church, taking walks, having dinner with people. And they just kind of say stuff to him. So he sees that young Leopold, Joyce's older brother, he likes to lurk around being a little creep. And he seems flush with pocket money because he's bought himself a fancy new watch.

[00:28:51] Poirot also speaks to Elizabeth Whittaker about Beatrice, the dead school teacher, and confirms that, yes, they were very much lesbians yearning, yonically, for one another. And Beatrice actually drowned herself in the pond rather than fully face her forbidden love, which she explained in a suicide note to Elizabeth. Which she keeps, right? Elizabeth keeps. Yeah. So there's no scandal and she can be buried in proper grounds.

[00:29:20] That was heartbreaking. That was more heartbreaking than Joyce's death. Definitely. Which says something about the weird tone of this show. It says something about us as well, but let's just move on. No, it's the show's problem. So Poirot learns from Michael that Mrs. Drake's garden is open to the public, but nobody comes because it has historical ties to the witch finder general and the English witch hunt.

[00:29:49] So people think it's cursed. Ooh, spooky. When Rowena Drake sees Michael in the garden, she's livid and she tells him to take his wheelbarrow and fuck off. Fuck all the way off with it. She's so mad. She was quite upset at this. Yeah. Very good acting. Yeah. Yeah. Miranda tells Poirot that she and Joyce used to share secrets and Joyce never told her that she'd seen a murderer.

[00:30:18] And everyone likes to tell Poirot what a lying, boring shitbag Joyce was. Witch is so funny to me and it makes me giggle every time. And they're just like, oh, Joyce, that sack of shit. It's terrible. She died. Poor child. I know. And everybody says, oh, you know, it's bad to speak ill of the dead. But. And then they go for it. Literal 12-year-old girl. I know.

[00:30:48] She's just a girl. Who is dressed as a cute little bumblebee. I keep seeing her now. In her little felt, right? Yes. We don't have time to, like, unpack why I think this is so funny. Or, like, why it's acceptable that this child in a bumblebee costume was killed. Well, secrets, you know. Secrets were so big that someone, you know, very unexpected had to die.

[00:31:17] But also they set her up so well. Like, when she turns her stupid face up to Ariadne Oliver and she's like, I saw a murder once. You're like, fuck off, Joyce. I hope you get murdered. I mean, we've been that child. All of us have been that child a little bit when we were little, you know? Yeah. Like, I know how to do that. I've driven a car. Like, no.

[00:31:42] Imagine if every time you were an asshole as a 12-year-old, you got murdered about it. You were in danger. Your life was in danger. Every time you, you know, wear a little shit. It's too much. Poor Joyce. So just to pile on to Joyce even more, like, the vicar tells the story about how her uncle went to India and she pretended that she had gone to India. And she made up a bunch of, like, fictional maharajas and elephants and tigers to brag about.

[00:32:08] So are you ready for here's another important clue involving documents? So Poirot searches through Leslie Ferrier's things and finds hidden in there another codicil to Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe's will, which again leaves everything to Olga. And everyone assumes this is another forgery. He was just making multiple forgeries.

[00:32:36] But it's weird because this one looks a lot better than the first forgery. The lawyer says, right? This is the law forgery. Yeah. The next day, Elizabeth Whitaker finds the body of Leopold, Joyce's older brother, drowned in the pond. She's totally re-traumatized. Honestly, the poor woman. She's not going to be the same. It's bad enough that she kept going and taking walks down by that pond where her lover died. That wasn't healthy to begin with. How can she then have a steady hand to play the organ? I'll never know.

[00:33:06] No. Good thing. She'll have to retire. She's very young. You know, she plays Agatha Christie in a Doctor Who episode. That same actress. I love that actress. Me too. She's a brilliant, she's got a brilliant face for Agatha Christie. Yeah. She's in a lot of great period dramas. Poirot learns from the vicar that Olga never went home to Czechoslovakia. And he still gets letters from her parents begging for help locating her.

[00:33:34] The vicar also recalls a time when Mrs. Llewellyn Smith came to him to say some really vague shit about wickedness, which was very unhelpful. She basically came around to the church to vague book at him and then run away. Yeah. And then she promptly went away and died. It's all very, it's all very, it's a, it's a scene that it's all very kind of breathy. You know, it's, well, such a scandal, such a scandal.

[00:34:04] But there's nothing concrete about it. I don't like that scene, to be honest. No, it's very frustrating. Also, it's a priest. Just go and confess. Why did you go to talk to him? You obviously want to confess something. Vicar. Right. So I don't know. Do they take confessions? They don't, but there was a time, I know this is what in the 1930s? Nah, it's too late. But in Anglicanism, at the end of the 19th century has a time where it adopts confession.

[00:34:33] They're like, oh, the Catholics are having so much fun gossiping to the priest. We want to do it. This is a bit, this is a bit later. Yeah. Maybe not. Well, if she had done that, that would have been a lot, a lot more helpful. This is also kind of a Christie trope, isn't it? That's kind of like, oh, one character right before they die, they almost tell you something useful, but they're actually fucking useless. And then dead. Half-truths hinting at something.

[00:35:03] Mrs. Drake confesses to Poirot that she dropped the vase at the party because she saw Leopold in the library, like poking his little head out. And so after Joyce was killed, she thought he did it. And while talking the case over with Ariadne and Judith, Poirot has one of his classic epiphanies. And he declares he's been three times over an imbecile. An imbecile! I love it when he does that.

[00:35:31] The key was the story Joyce invented about going to India, even though it was her uncle who'd gone. Though Joyce never saw a murder, she appropriated the story from someone who really did, Miranda. And they realize Miranda is in danger because she knows who done did that murder. And now she's missing. She's not in her room.

[00:35:59] Mother runs up to her room and she's not there. The window is open. It's dark. Catastrophic. Where'd she go? It turns out she's walking in Mrs. Drake's garden in a white dress with a stranger wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. It's anonymous. No, it's not. It's Michael Garfield. And he's somehow brainwashed her into agreeing to be a sacrifice.

[00:36:28] So she says, I have to die so that others might live, so that beauty can live. So that beauty can live. This is all very unconvincing. How? She is totally calm and on board with the idea that her death and the deaths of three other people, so Joyce, Leopold, and the first murder she saw, that they're for some kind of foggy greater good. Also, a 12-year-old, the idea of beauty, no. It's a bit abstract.

[00:36:58] It's a bit abstract. I don't know. You have to die because otherwise I will kill your mother. I mean, kind of direct, logical thing that a 12-year-old can understand. And yes, but beauty. She looks great in that white dress, though. Yeah. Under the moonlight. So, and also, evidently she's not that convinced because she hesitates before drinking the chalice of poison. Indeed.

[00:37:27] And when Michael tries to force her, Poirot comes in and bashes him with his duck stick. I love it. I don't think this happens many times in the Poirot series, that he stops a murder. He stops a murder and with violence. Yeah. Like, he bishes that guy over the head. Yeah. You can hear the little steps running up and going plonk. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. And he's not there alone.

[00:37:54] He's brought the inspector in his bobbies and they swoop in and arrest Michael. And then Poirot and his pals, they go into Mrs. Drake's house where she and her children wake up and they join the party in their dressing gowns. They make tea for everybody. And Miranda confirms that Joyce just repeated what she had told her.

[00:38:15] Two years ago, Miranda was in the garden and she saw Michael dragging a body wrapped in sackcloth so she couldn't see who it was. And she thought maybe it was an accident or a sacrifice. So she uses that language. So I guess he'd already been like grooming that into her like before he went away to Athens. Yeah. We've been spending obviously too much time alone with her.

[00:38:45] And now it's time for Poirot's reveal. Love it. He says, perhaps it is time for Poirot to tell you a story. A Halloween story. Close up of him and his hands. First, the codicil of Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe's will, leaving everything to Olga, was real. But Leslie Ferrier replaced it with an obvious forgery so it would get thrown out.

[00:39:15] Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe was after the vicar with vague shit about wickedness because Olga knew about the affair going on between Michael Garfield and Rowena Drake. Fentance. Rowena only pretended to hate him. I love her. Yeah. Oh, she's so great. She's so good. We recently had an episode on Wives and Daughters and she's also in Wives and Daughters. I haven't seen that.

[00:39:44] Oh gosh, it's so good. It's one of my favorites. You know what she's in? And I love her in Cranford. Yes, she plays a similar character in Wives and Daughters as well. Oh my goodness, an older sister. Oh, does she? She's so good. She does things with her face. Yeah. Yeah. But here she's evil. I love her for it. A very unexpected evil and she plays it very well. Okay, now try to keep track of the body count. Okay, yes. This couple. First. Uno. Uno. No.

[00:40:15] Michael ran over Rowena's husband with her car. Sorry. Not her car. Was it her car? I don't know if it was her car. I don't know. I'm just going to leave it that way. So Leslie Ferrier tipped Rowena off about the codicil. Yes. And offered to make the forgery for money. Then they poisoned Mrs. Llewellyn Smythe. Olga was making noise about like accusing them of murder and fucking with the will.

[00:40:43] So Rowena killed her and Michael buried her in the garden. Okay, this is number four. Yeah. Then they killed Leslie Ferrier just to wrap it up all nice and tidy. Just stab him, leave his ass in the street. And Rowena is home free with the house in the garden and Michael fucks off to Athens. Two years later, poor unfortunate Joyce runs her bumblebee mouth and Rowena drowns her in the apple bucket.

[00:41:14] And she's better. Yeah. And she would have grown up to cure cancer. She would have grown into a beautiful woman. You think? You're being so kind. Everyone's really mean to her this whole time. Everyone's so mean to her. So Leopold, her brother, spotted Rowena going into the library and blackmailed her.

[00:41:41] So Michael, who is conveniently now returned, like right at this moment, he kills Leopold too. Six. That is six murders. And of course, Michael was trying to kill Miranda as well. Then Poirot pulls this savage move.

[00:42:01] He has the inspector haul Michael into the room in handcuffs just so he can tell Rowena in front of everyone that he never loved her. And he did everything for money and the garden. I know she's a murderess, but I feel so sorry for her. When she breaks down. Yeah. It was brutal. Really brutal. She kneels in front of him, grabs him by the ankles.

[00:42:30] Not dignified. Not dignified at all. Also in her nightgown. Yeah. Oh. She deserves it. But it is savage. Another savage move, though. Poirot goes ahead and blows up Judith's spot by telling everyone that Michael is Miranda's real father. That could have been an email. That, yes! You know, that could have been. That did not need to happen. No. In front of everybody? Come on.

[00:42:58] That could have been the next day wrap-up when he's, like, explaining how he knew that her pilot dead husband wasn't real because there were no pictures of him. Like, they could have had that whole conversation in private. It's just a lot. There didn't need to be any kind of, like, public. No. And I don't know if he was trying to get Michael to confront that fact or whatever. It doesn't. But can you imagine how traumatized that little girl ends up being? You know? Yeah. By the way, this is your father who has just killed a number of people.

[00:43:29] And confessed. He was trying to kill you. Yeah. Like, he almost killed you. And now this person you don't know is explaining your parentage. I think it's... Like, blowing up the idea of your life and your father in front of everyone when you were almost just killed. That was really unnecessary of Poirot. But I think that it's not out of character with the late Poirot.

[00:43:55] The late Poirot, I think, gets more and more a kind of God complex, to be honest. You know? I think in some kind of corner of his head he's saying, yeah, I have the right to reveal. You know? Because I know. Yeah. It's secrets. And I just hate these secrets. And I want to uncover all of them. Yes. You're right. I think that it's something that early Poirot would not have done. No, I don't think so. He would have been much more delicate about this woman and her child.

[00:44:24] But also, okay, if she didn't inherit money from a dead pilot, then how did she afford that house? I can't even. She's just a single mom now. Maybe she had her own money and we don't learn about it. Everybody in that village seems to have money. Even the gossip, who is a child woman, lives quite comfortably. She's also independently wealthy. Independently wealthy. She sells her witch makeup on Etsy. Absolutely.

[00:44:54] She has a beautiful red ruby cardigan that she's wearing when Poirot comes to talk to her. That's not cheap wool, I tell you. No. No. That's at least from M&S. Yes. Just to wrap it up. Yes. The police find Olga's body the next morning. He crosses himself. Oh, I missed that. Yeah.

[00:45:23] So then Poirot is there with Judith and Ariadne and they walk through the village to the church. And he muses once more that Halloween is not for telling macabre stories, but for lighting candles for the dead. So he's like, let's go and do that. The end. And at the end, we also get a spooky violin version of the theme music, which I love. And it pans to a kind of rotting giant tone.

[00:45:54] Death and decay. The end. Beautiful summary. Thank you. Should we have some spooky Halloween music? Yes, let's do it. We don't actually get to hear it. It'll be in the episode. But we can pretend we heard it. We can be like, wow.

[00:46:22] Wow, that was spooky. Wow. I'm just very spooked. My hair is on end. What can I say? So let me just tell you a little bit about the production. By the way, this screenplay was written by Mark Gattis. I know. Who you might know as Mycroft from the Sherlock series. I love him. He's been in League of Gentlemen. He's been in loads of stuff. He writes and produces loads of stuff. And he wrote this screenplay.

[00:46:53] So maybe he can explain to me how Judith afforded that four bedroom house. The change that was made from the book, the only, I think, real material change that I found was that this book was written in 1969 or it was published in 1969. And here it's set in the 30s because everything that's adapted in the Poirot series is in the Between Wars period. No matter when the source material was written.

[00:47:23] Because that's how we understand Poirot. We understand him as like an art deco diva. Totally. So that just means that there are some anachronisms that appear in the series if it's meant to be set in the 30s. Just a couple. The first is that carving pumpkins actually for Halloween is relatively recent. It was imported from the United States. Here in Scotland, there was lots of turnip stabbing. I know. Yeah.

[00:47:53] Stinky as well. Yeah. Unfortunately, this probably wouldn't have been happening at a Halloween party in England in the 1930s. Also, we get Mrs. Goodbody coming in as the witch. And she's all painted herself green from her makeup collection, her palette that she sells on Etsy. Chixi Mattel. Apple green.

[00:48:21] So that was appropriate if it was set in the 1960s because that idea of the green witch comes from the Wicked Witch of the West. From The Wizard of Oz from 1939. So earlier than that, we wouldn't really have had green painted witches looking like the Wicked Witch of the West. But that's it, really. Those are just a few little tidbits. That's okay.

[00:48:46] So, just that we've already done a Poirot episode in which we've talked about the background of Poirot. We talked about some of the stuff we know about kind of his early days and the cases leading up to that Christmas episode and the kind of character he was then. It's sort of like the earlier seasons of Poirot. This is a much later Poirot.

[00:49:12] And I think that it tells us more about the kind of character that Poirot is that we haven't talked about before. And that's why I wanted to talk to you about Poirot specifically because we've had some chats about Poirot before. We have.

[00:49:28] And I think it all started with an Instagram post that I made where I said something like, I took a picture of Poirot fixing the tie of Captain Hastings in one of the earlier episodes when they are by the sea and it's all very carefree and there's a lot of light. The skies are blue. Of course, there's murder.

[00:49:49] But that's almost incidental to the love story that I think exists between Poirot and Captain Hastings for many, many episodes, at least for the first third of the series that I watched. Because that's what I did last year. So my years are academic years because I'm a lecturer.

[00:50:13] So from September last year till the end of this summer, I just watched the whole of the Poirot series in order of, you know, of being filmed. And so, yeah, I just think that Poirot is a big, big bisexual, if not pan, actually. If not pan, yeah. Yeah. Well, look, let's talk about like the arc of Captain Hastings.

[00:50:39] So he is, he's the first person that Poirot knows in England. He knows him from the war. He knows him from Belgium. He comes over in the mysterious affair at Stiles and gets reacquainted with Captain Hastings. And that's like the beginning of the relationship as we know it. We don't know how, what their friendship looked like in Belgium.

[00:51:04] Then they're together for many, many, many episodes until eventually Hastings meets his wife and goes to set up a ranch in Argentina with her. And then he comes back a couple of times just to be like, her ranch sucks and my wife hates me. Literally. Literally.

[00:51:29] And then we do see him in the final episode of Poirot, which I ignore. No. I've seen it once. It deeply upset me and I don't ever want to watch it again. But Hastings is there. I think the last episode is key to understand Poirot and Hastings. Yeah. And Poirot and Hastings, I think. But yes, at the beginning, they're very good friends.

[00:51:54] Hastings spends long periods of time at Poirot's flat. Beautiful Art Deco flat. They eat together. They go on holidays together. Incidentally, yes, Hastings marries this woman who we never know. We never meet. We don't even know. Oh, no. Do we? Yes, we do meet. Yes, we do. In the, I can't remember what it's called now, but the golf. Yes. The golf episode. Yes, the golf episode. And Poirot. She is accused of murder.

[00:52:23] Yeah, but Poirot is incidental. So she is wife. Poirot is incidental in that relationship. Not incidental. It's key to that relationship. Poirot is the one that, at the end of that episode, says to Hastings, go and fetch her. Go and look for her. You know, there's obviously something there. Which I think says something about kind of the early self-sacrifice in Poirot. That, you know, of course loves Hastings.

[00:52:52] Has had a relationship for him, with him for many years. But understands that this is a young man or a younger man. And has a life ahead of himself. You know, perhaps he needs a wife. You know, this is the kind of act of grace that Poirot has with Captain Hastings. Having now watched the series, can you tell us more about the evidence that you feel that you've gathered that points to Poirot's bisexuality and specifically his relationship with Hastings?

[00:53:21] I think on the one hand, Poirot has these love interests. Like, is it a countess? Is it a duchess? I can't remember what she is. She's a thief. She's a thief. She is a thief as well as all that. But he is obsessed with her. You know, she adores her. She follows her around. She travels to places just because she tells her to travel to places. So Poirot has this passion for this woman. It's clear.

[00:53:48] But as I said earlier, to me, it feels a little bit like a passion that you may have for a female saint. You know, a devotion and adoration. You know, you sacrifice yourself for certain things in order to keep that devotion going. When it comes to Hastings, I think it's about the everyday gestures that he has, that he shares, and everyday moments that he shares with Hastings.

[00:54:13] You know, the living together, the fact that Poirot is very careful with his time. You know, he really enjoys spending time by himself so his little gray cells can, you know, do their work in silence and in peace. But he's never irked by Captain Hastings' presence. No, he's not. And yeah, that's something I never really thought about.

[00:54:37] Poirot is not the kind of person who will just tolerate the presence of anyone. Yeah. He's a snob. Yeah. He's a snob. He's a big snob. There has to be. And Hastings is not, like, he is his usual set in that Hastings is a posh, kind of independently wealthy man from, you know, an aristocratic background. That is the kind of people that Poirot fucks with, basically, in England.

[00:55:05] But he's a bit goofy. He is. He's not the sharpest. So there is, if you take out the element of love or attraction, then there is a big disconnect. Why is he hanging out with Hastings so much? They're very different people. It could be that in this new series that it's about to be filmed, Hercule. Maybe we get to know, you know, why is it that, you know, they're so close.

[00:55:33] Maybe they fought together, one saved each other, another's life. I don't know. But the fact is that in what we see in the classical series, or what is now classical, there is this attraction between two people that are very, very different. An attraction that goes on and on and on until, you know, the end of Poirot's life.

[00:55:55] In fact, the last words that Poirot says before he dies are mon ami, in reference to him who has just come to visit him. Come on. That's case closed, isn't it? Yeah. We're not even talking about the sexual element of it. We don't need to.

[00:56:21] We're not ruminating on that kind of like, what did they ever kind of like physically get together? Because it's almost a material, like what you're talking about are real moments, real tangible evidence of love. And whether that kind of love was consummated, I don't think that matters. Correct.

[00:56:44] Having said that, if in Hercule we got this Poirot, this young, thin Poirot having full-blown gay sex with Captain Hastings, would that make it worth it for you? One can dream. Alice. Would it make it worth it for me? For me, it would be like, I don't know.

[00:57:11] I think it would be almost disappointing, actually, because I prefer this to be, you know, a kind of game of smoke and mirrors, really, rather than just reveal itself. Because it's more appropriate for its time as well. You know, in, for example, in Maurice, Ian Foster's novel and the beautiful film that was made in the 80s of that. Which we have also talked about on this podcast. You have not. In our episode.

[00:57:39] It's in our, it's, yeah, it's not its own standalone. I would love to do that as well. But it is in our episode on queried dramas. We talk about Maurice. Yeah. I even had, if anyone wants to readapt that novel, I have some very good ideas. You have opinions. You have opinions. Yeah. Oh, I don't know if I, it's a film that I watch twice a year. Oh, wow. Yeah. At any particular time. I also have my devotion to this film. Yeah. Any particular time, not really.

[00:58:09] Winter and summer kind of thing. And again, we don't see a consummation of that. There is no consummation of that relationship. There is intimacy. There is physical intimacy, but there's no consummation. And so that doesn't mean that, yeah, love and care. It would be jarring for an Agatha Christie story. And it has been jarring. And we've talked about this in other Agatha Christie adaptations.

[00:58:36] For example, Towards Zero, when there is a scene that involves Cunnilingus on a staircase. Ooh, wow. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry to spoil that for you. I would love for you to have discovered that organically. But it is a bit of like, ugh. It is a bit of a jolt.

[00:58:59] And yeah, I think to have these kind of characters actually having sex, I think it would be, it is a nice idea in that I would like to see some of these more buried ideas coming to life. If we're going to do kind of a different take on Farrow and Hastings. They're going to be two hot guys. Why have two hot guys in a series? Two guys who were not hot.

[00:59:29] Why make them hot in a new adaptation if you're not going to at least have them kiss? Why don't we start our own fanzine or fan comic or fan something? You know, we can start drawing. Can you draw? I'm terrible. Yeah, me too. But I like drawing. Stick figure, erotic, Agatha Christie zine. I think it would be a success. At least as well. So we'd have Poirot and Hastings getting together.

[00:59:58] Poirot and Hastings, definitely. Yeah. And then Jap could come in at some point and like discover them and be like, we're so rich then. No, I think, I think Jap is an undervalued character. And I think Jap knows about this stuff. He knows. He spends a Christmas with Poirot, doesn't he? Jap. Yes. And then he spends a period of time in his flat because they're doing some kind of works in his flat. So yeah, he knows. He's like.

[01:00:28] He's been around enough. He sees the writing on the wall. He's a good friend. But here in this episode, we have no Jap. We have no Hastings. We have no Miss Lemon. So this is the George era. And this is the Ariadne Oliver era. And so we do see a development of Poirot. And a lot of that, as we've mentioned, has to do with his Catholicism. I think so.

[01:00:54] So I think as Poirot gets old, it's more and more evident that he's trying to make peace with God. But here we have an interesting God. We have what we would say a pre-Vatican II God. So the Vatican II, or the Second Vatican Council, was a big meeting of cardinals and bishops and people in the 1960s.

[01:01:19] And there is different councils throughout the history of the Church in which a Pope wants to talk about something important. And the Vatican II, it's all about, it's in the 1960s, so it's about the new modern era. How is it that the Church can adapt to the modern era? And so there's resolutions that are taken there, such as, you know, mass can be said in the vernacular, so it doesn't have to be in Latin anymore.

[01:01:43] There's a lot more emphasis in the everyday life of the Church and of the people that make up the Church rather than, you know, the hierarchy, the priests, the bishops. So it's popularized. You know, Catholicism, it's popularized. Now, the pre-Vatican II period, I think, so the Church is popularized and God is popularized. God becomes this pal, this friend that you can talk to directly. You don't need a saint. You don't need to go to mass.

[01:02:11] You just do it, you know, while you're making tea. This is not that Poirot. Poirot is very much trying to make peace with a God that is vengeful, that is the God of the Old Testament, and that is a God that is not going to forgive certain things. And some of those things are things that Poirot has done in his life. Number one, being queer. Number two, in the murder of the Orient Express, he basically exonerates everybody, right? Yeah. So that's a big one.

[01:02:40] And this is one that has been, that is filmed towards the end of the series as well. Yes. With Suchet. Yeah. And I think it's a really great choice. Yeah. So even his letting off the countess comes back. Yes. That sin casts a long shadow as well in the last episode of the series with her daughter. Yeah.

[01:03:05] It's a Poirot that we see less of a preoccupation with his aspect, you know. In the first two thirds of the series, he's always cutting his little mustache, you know, making sure that he looks great. And here he looks a little bit, you know, he's very tidy, he's very clean, but his clothes lack the luster that he used to have. So he's lost the care of the self.

[01:03:32] And he keeps bringing up Catholicism in the series, like, you know, the candles here. In another series, he's seen carrying a rosary around and praying. In the last episode ever, it's all about where he dies. It's all about, you know, forgiveness. Who has the capacity to forgive? Who can forgive? Who cannot? And I don't know if this is a spoiler. Of course it's a spoiler. But in the last episode, he, Poirot, commits murder. Yes.

[01:04:03] He kills someone. It's really hard. It's really hard for me to take. It's so hard. It's so hard. It's totally against his character. It's something that he does just before he dies. I think he has become God by then. He thinks he can, you know, do what he wants and be forgiven for it because he's right. Right? This is something that he insists on throughout the series. He's always right. He will find the murder. He does find the murder.

[01:04:33] But even the, you know, the little theatrical denouement that he has at the end of every episode, you know. Yeah. It becomes more and more serious and violent as the series progresses, I think. Yes. You know, here he starts shouting at, what's her name, Rowena Drake, you know, how dare you commit these murders? You know. You know, he becomes really visceral about this, you know, as if he's got himself passing judgment on all of this.

[01:05:02] So, yeah, I think he becomes more severe. Sorry. He does become more severe. I think he is a character that the audience is presented with as a little bit ridiculous. And that's part of his charm. And you wouldn't dare think of this Poirot in this episode as ridiculous. No. In that same fun, charming way.

[01:05:25] Even with someone like Ariadne Oliver, who he has, like, a fun relationship with, she is meant to be the fun character. Maybe it's because she's laid up in bed. Maybe it's because she's sick. She can't be there to, like, offer some more levity for him. But, yeah, it does speak to, like, the change. I think that is really characteristic of Poirot and the series is that it's very campy, you know, at least to start with. But then towards the end, it loses its campiness, I think.

[01:05:55] It becomes something else. And perhaps other characters become a little bit camp, like Mrs. Oliver in bed with her hair down, you know, having nightmares and fevers and that kind of thing. But, yes, he loses the levity of Elia Poirot. Even the way the series are shot, you know, they become darker and darker and darker, I think.

[01:06:20] And I think the palette of the series, you know, if the first two-thirds is full of, you know, days and knees and cornwall and, you know, all this, you know, the water playing with the sun and beautiful thing. You know, towards the last few series, it's all about autumn, winter, you know, dark clothes, dark rooms, the night. There's definitely... And a little bit of the macabre. Yeah, total.

[01:06:50] I don't know if this is very heavy. So can we go back to the zine? Yes, let's go back to the zine. What are we going to do? Yeah, our erotic stick figure zine. So we're going to have an issue of the zine, of the erotic zine with these two lesbians. I want to imagine a happy ending for them. Yes, so that's the thing.

[01:07:13] We're talking about all of this queerness when it comes to Poirot and how it's not shown, it can't really be shown between Poirot and Hastings for various reasons. There's plenty of queerness in these Agatha Christie stories. And that's one of the more tragic side stories, the story of the lesbian couple who can't be together. And so, yeah, justice for them. And I think they should make it into our zine as well. I think so.

[01:07:38] I think we have to imagine a future where the organists, you know, plays every Sunday and after Sunday mass, they go hand in hand to the pond and they have a picnic and it's all very beautiful. And they build their own house, of course. Yeah. I think I want to see that future for them.

[01:08:02] So, since you're an avid listener of our show, you know that we like to give awards to everything that we watch. I'm just going to go ahead and start. Go. So, I would like to give an award for this episode of Poirot to this poor inspector who I cannot even name. I don't – I would have to look up the IMDb. I think he must have a name. The character must have a name.

[01:08:31] There's a character in the book that he's based on that I can't remember his name. But this inspector is, I think, the most boring, most generic looking, most useless form of flesh in a gray suit that we've ever seen in a Poirot or a Marple even. Like, what does he even do? What does he do? I know. He procures a document for Poirot.

[01:08:59] And other than that, he just kind of, like, walks around being like, I guess we're looking for a homeless person. I think he also has three main lines, which is at the beginning he says, I don't need you. In the middle he says, I might need you. And by the end he says, I do need you to Poirot. That's a storyline. But I think the sad thing is that he knows. He knows that he doesn't even have a name. You know, in the way the character acts and talks.

[01:09:28] It's like, yeah, I'm not important here. You know, everything is going to happen without me. Well, that's sad. Yeah, because one should be the main character in one's own life. But he is just not. No. You know? Yeah. I have an award, actually. Do you? Yes. That's brilliant. And it might be the first award that is given to a non-human thing. Oh, yeah? Is that it? Is that correct? Could that be? I mean...

[01:10:01] I'm going to be honest. We forget them pretty much as soon as we give them out. I'm sure we've given some to animals before. Okay. This is not even that. So my award goes to the book that Mrs. Oliver is trying to finish, which is titled, I'll Huff and I'll Puff. Apparently, it's about a crime that has happened on a hot air balloon.

[01:10:30] And it's... Yeah. Yeah. It's a bottle episode in my head. Yeah. I'll Huff and I'll Puff is a bottle episode that takes entirely takes place in a hot air balloon. Yes. And then at the end... Oh, no. At the end when she's like... Some character gives the big reveal of like, the murderer has been on this hot air balloon the whole time. All along.

[01:10:58] And there's poison involved in it, apparently. No, definitely. My... I mean, the title is incredible as well. So yeah, my award goes to this unfinished book that I would love to read, I'll Huff and I'll Puff. That also sounds like a really good title for an issue of our erotic zine. Ooh, stop it! Yeah, we could maybe flesh it out a little bit. Flesh out, I'll Huff and I'll Puff. But yeah. Isn't it a pity that we can't draw?

[01:11:28] Yeah. I am often sad about the many things that I'm not good at. You know what? I'm very good at drawing body parts. Like, I'm very good... Oh, yeah. Yes. I'm very good at legs. I'm very good at hands if I'm just drawing the hand. But putting it all together... So all I need to do is work on torsos, heads, and possibly forearms? Yes. And knees. I'm not very good with knees. You know, so you're good at drawing legs but not knees?

[01:11:58] Knees are always like raisins in the end. I don't know why. Uh-huh. Okay. So, but I think maybe between us we could try to work it out. How are you at hats? Hat? Very good. Excellent. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a trouser? That might solve your knee problem. Yeah, that could solve my knee problem. Yeah, but if we're starting to draw a kind of an erotic version of Poirot secondary characters, we need knees. We need knees.

[01:12:28] We need knees. We need toes. We need elbows. Yeah. Very difficult to draw. A zine cannot be called erotic without knees and toes. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I'm hesitant to use AI now, you know? No, no, no. No, no, no. It hasn't come to that, surely. The erotic zine business has not sunk that far. No, look, we'll work out a system.

[01:12:54] Like you do the initial sketches and then I'll fill it in with the torso. I think the genitals, we can do kind of a collaborative effort there. I think we've got a great thing going. I think so. Looking forward to working with you. Yes. Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about this. Of course, anytime. So I think we had a little bit of a spooky time and then we had a little bit of a sexy time and then we had a little bit of a Catholic time. And that's exactly the order in which I like to do things always.

[01:13:25] So thank you so much. It has been really, really, really fun to chat to you. And I'll probably see you hanging around my bus stop again. I know. We'll bump into each other for sure. Yeah. But this time we should go for coffee. Oh my gosh. Imagine. Imagine if we actually sat down and chat to each other instead of just like. Trying to be like, real quick. Now that I have you on the street in the middle of a bunch of people. So Hastings. What are we doing with his genitals?

[01:13:59] Brilliant. This sounds like a plan. Let's do it. Let's do it. As always, if there is anything Agatha Christie, if there is anything Poirot that you want to talk to us about, if you want to recommend a query drama, a spooky drama, anything that you would like us to cover, please get in touch with us. You can email us at fetchsmellingsalts at gmail.com. You can also hit us up on our Instagram, which is at fetchsmellingsalts.

[01:14:25] You can also find us on the website of our network, our podcast daddies, Podomity, at podomity.com slash fetchsmellingsalts. So until then, we'll all say goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. That was good harmony.

[01:14:56] All finished. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got? Visit podomity.com.