His awkward English syntax only serves to enhance his charm

His awkward English syntax only serves to enhance his charm.Some critics have attacked the cosy safety of period drama, but Suchet leaps to its defence. So, in Suchet's mouth, a line such as Poirot's peremptory dismissal of the game of golf - "to hit a little ball into a little hole in the middle of a large open field, I think it is not to the taste of Poirot" - raises a smile rather than a scowl. So he was aware of himself and almost parodying himself as well." It is this twinkle that really distinguishes Suchet's performance. Dressed in an immaculate grey three- piece suit with matching hat and gloves and carrying a cane topped with a silver swan, his Poirot can sprinkle even the most apparently po-faced words with his own brand of actorly fairy-dust. On top of that, they liked his desire to do good and rid the world of crime, his attitude of being a Harley Street specialist in his own field, his humour, his malapropisms, his dapperness, his running-down of the English upper classes and his standing up for his own nation." Phew.Suchet, really getting into his stride now, continues: "Agatha always wrote of him as having a twinkle in his eye.

"I've often wondered, reading the stories, what it is about this strange, almost obsessive little Belgian, who believes he's the world's greatest detective and has the ego the size of a big city, that made him so attractive to a readership that wouldn't give him up - and turned Agatha Christie into the top-selling author of her day. What is it that made people say, `I really like this man' rather than `I can't bear him'? It took me a long time to realise that it was his very eccentricity of character that appealed to the British so much. In the appropriately showbizzy surroundings of the Brasserie at the Cafe Royal in London's West End - all busts of George Bernard Shaw and signed photos of black-and-white luvvies - a clean-shaven David Suchet ponders the enduring popularity of his moustachioed alter ego. "On the page, you know, he's a bit of a prig," he says. There is, of course, rather more to his appeal than the bald fact of his nationality. To some people, Belgians are a bit of a joke. The French use them as the butt in their equivalent of Irish jokes, and the British have been known to view them in a similarly amused light. We ask questions along the lines of "How many famous Belgians can you name?" It comes as a bit of a surprise, then, that one of the most popular characters in British television dramas of recent years hails from that much-maligned nation Hercule Poirot is indisputably Belgian.

Gravett also hopes the exhibition will raise the profile of the museum, which is presently seeking to ensure permanent funding. "There are national museums of cartoon art in Istanbul and Macedonia. It's quite ridiculous that there isn't one here.'' So perform a random act of kindness and go and see this show.LIESE SPENCER`Random Acts of Kindness' is on show at the National Museum of Cartoon Art, 15-17 St Cross Street, London EC1N 8UN (0171-405 4717) 2-12 Jan 1996; the Museum is open Mon-Fri 12noon-6pm. Hezbollah give their airline captives impromptu makeovers and "wife treaters'' feed their spouses with chocolate until they are forced to escape to refuges for "fattened women''. In a country swamped by American cartoons, curator Paul Gravett seized the show as a way to introduce insular Brits to the cream of European graphic art. Mariscal's dog-eat-dog interpretation of natural born niceness: "You die so I can live, I die so you can live'' (left), figures what appears to be bloodthirsty cobis obeying Darwinian laws of survival. As well as imagining their own stories, each artist has contributed a single panel to a collaborative cartoon dubbed Outbreak of Violets. The story is written by Alan Moore, famous for filling the speech bubbles of 2,000AD, Judge Dredd and Swamp Thing.

Given the dystopian slant of many comics and graphic novels, the concept of sudden and ubiquitous kindness is a clever conceit, and Moore's text provides the artists with bizarre ammunition for their diversely styled illustration. One entry said: `Mrs M is considering the option of having her ovaries removed.' It couldn't have been further from the truth."After the operation I checked my consent form Someone had altered it. When I signed the form it said `TAH' [removal of the uterus] and that was all. But when I looked at the form after the operation the letters `BSO?' had been added [possible removal of both ovaries] I was incensed.

They invaded my body and took out something which is irreplaceable."Mrs McShane obtained an independent report from another consultant. The consultant found in favour of the surgeon: "He said that what was done to me would `improve my future quality of life' Angry, she set up the Campaign for Informed Consent. "I realised that justice would not come through the courts," she says.Mrs McShane now suffers from water retention, migraines, constant nausea, aching joints and insomnia. "I think patients should be given a carbon copy of the form of consent at the time of signing", she says.