David Suchet was most recently seen as Augustus Melmotte in the highly-praised BBC TV adaptation of Trollope's The Way We Live Now.

But of course, it is his portrayal of the fastidious detective Poirot which brought him to wide attention after a series of adaptations were broadcast on ITV.

Most of Suchet's work has been in TV or on the stage

The actor seems to take naturally to darker roles with an undertow of menace or repression.

He was born in London in 1946 and studied acting at Lamda before going into repertory theatre.

A long spell with the Royal Shakespeare Company followed in which he played roles like Caliban, Shylock and King Lear's Fool.

Suchet won the Variety Club Award for best actor in 1994 after appearing in Oleanna in the Royal Court Theatre, an honour soon followed by a Critics Circle award for his role in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.

Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, an imaginative dramatisation of Mozart's relationship with his elder Salieri, brought another Variety Club award, for the actor's portrayal of the bitter older composer.

Suchet's film career started with the TV film of A Tale Of Two Cities and continued with the acclaimed The Missionary in 1982.

Suchet appeared in TV drama Murder in Mind

But most of his work has been in TV or on the stage. He appeared frequently as Poirot between 1989 and 1999, and in a revival of Amadeus at the Old Vic in 1998.

His triumphant return to TV with The Way We Live Now brought critical superlatives.

"Suchet gave such a towering performance, whenever he left the room it seemed an emptier place," said the Daily Mirror.

The role won him the Royal Television Society award in 2002.

Suchet, who is the brother of newsreader John Suchet, is also a council member of Lamda.