Poirot Captain Hastings's scathing reply to bosses after being brutally dropped from show

Many fans of will remember that the famous Belgian detective was often accompanied by Captain Hastings during his murder investigations. Portrayed by Hugh Fraser, he sat in the role for 43 episodes from 1989 until 2001 and briefly returned in 2013. Whilst there were 70 episodes during David Suchet's tenure as Poirot, Hugh was notably absent from some stories as the character Hastings didn't appear in several books. As the series progressed, he wasn't in the series as often as the producers decided to stay faithful to the Christie novels.

Speaking in an , Hugh said, "And then later on, after about 10 years I suppose, there was a change of producers and they decided to remain faithful to the characters that were in the original books, and hence I wasn't in the series as often as I had been early on."

When quizzed whether he was an Agatha Christie fan before getting the part, he confessed, "Yes, I was. I'd read the Christie books when I was quite young. When I was about 13-14, I read most of them, I think. We didn't have any television in our house then, so I was an avid reader, and I remember just devouring them basically, one after the other."

In similar news, David Suchet made an emotional confession about the famous Belgian detective, saying that 'he cannot watch anyone else play the part.'

Speaking to Daily Express, the 78-year-old explained that he had never watched others portray the TV character and had no opinion of the actors.

He said: "They have remade Poirot with other actors, and so they must - just as they must keep staging Shakespeare's plays with different actors. I've taken over hundreds of roles that have been played by other people."

"I haven't watched any of the more recent Poirots. I don't want to because people will always ask me about them, hoping I will criticise them. But that's not my nature."

Other actors who have played Hercule Poirot include Peter Ustinov, Kenneth Branagh, Alfred Molina, and Albert Finney.