In his book, Poirot and Me, Suchet mentions that Ustinov one day approached him and told him that Suchet could play Poirot and would be good at it. Coincidentally, Suchet appeared as Inspector Japp in 1985's Thirteen at Dinner, in which Peter Ustinov portrayed Poirot.
In 1985, he played Blott in the television series Blott on the Landscape, and corporate whistle-blower Stanley Adams in A Song for Europe. He portrayed Sigmund Freud in the six-hour mini-series Freud, co-produced by the BBC in 1984. In 1983, he played the insidious half-Chinese policeman with orders to kill British spy Sidney Reilly in Reilly, Ace of Spies.
In 1980, he also played Edward Teller, later developer of the US H-bomb, in the joint BBC-US TV serial about the US Manhattan Project called Oppenheimer. Television and film Īfter making his first TV appearance in 1970 and in a 1971 episode of Public Eye, he appeared in the 1980 made-for-TV film version of A Tale of Two Cities. In January 2022, Suchet had a three-week residency at the Harold Pinter Theatre performing Poirot and More, A Retrospective. He has been starring as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde at the Vaudeville Theatre in London since June 2015 and on tour. In 2014, he reprised the role of Benelli in the Australian tour of the play. In 2007, at the Chichester Festival Theatre, he played Cardinal Benelli in The Last Confession, about the death of Pope John Paul I. In 1996–97 he played opposite Dame Diana Rigg in the West End production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He was also featured as Salieri from 1998 to 2000 in the Broadway production Amadeus. He made his West End debut opposite Saskia Reeves in the Kempinski play Separation, at the Comedy Theatre in 1987. It was directed by Harold Pinter, and co-starred Lia Williams as "Carol". Suchet played "John" in the drama Oleanna at the Royal Court Theatre in 1993. In 1981–82, he played Bolingbroke in Richard II opposite Alan Howard. In 1973, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has said that Watermill "fulfils my vision of a perfect theatre". Suchet began his acting career at the Gateway Theatre, Chester (1969) and then appeared in many reps, including Worthing, Birmingham, Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Liverpool Playhouse, and the Watermill Theatre. Suchet's nephew is the RT broadcaster Rory Suchet.
His elder brother, John, is a British television presenter and former ITN newscaster. He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he now serves as a council member. Suchet and his brothers, John and Peter, attended Grenham House boarding school in Birchington-on-Sea, Kent then, after attending another independent school, Wellington School in Somerset, he took an interest in acting and joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 16. He was raised without religion, but became a practising Anglican in 1986, and was confirmed in 2006. David's mother was born in England and was Anglican (she was of Russian-Jewish descent on her father's side, and English Anglican on her mother's side).
Suchet's father changed his surname to Suchet while living in South Africa.
At some point, the family name was recorded as "Schohet", a Yiddish word (from Hebrew shochet) defining the profession of kosher butcher. Suchet's father was of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, the son of Izidor Suchedowitz, originally from Kretinga in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Jack emigrated from South Africa to England in 1932, trained to be a physician at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London, in 1933, and became an obstetrician and gynaecologist. Suchet was born in the Paddington area of London, the son of Joan Patricia ( née Jarché 1916–1992), an actress, and Jack Suchet. 3 Canal Trust and River Thames Alliance.