CELEBRATED actor Sir David Suchet – television’s legendary super sleuth Hercule Poirot – has spoken with fondness about his student days at Wellington School.

Sir David was a guest at Yeovil Literary Festival on October 23 where he spoke to a packed audience at the Westlands Yeovil entertainment venue about his acting career and his book entitled Travels with Agatha Christie.

During his on-stage interview with Claire Carter, of BBC Radio Somerset, Sir David said it was great to be back in the West Country as he spent some of his early teenage years as a student at Wellington School and played rugby for the school and described them as “very happy days.”

Afterwards he held an hour-long book signing session with fans during which time he told our reporter that the Wellington Weekly News was a “great paper.”

“The Wellington Weekly News printed my first-ever acting review when I played Macbeth in a school production in 1962,” he said. “I bet you’ve got it on file somewhere!”

Sir David’s acting career has so far spanned 54 years and he has appeared in multiple films and television programmes, but it was as Agatha Christie’s Poirot from 1989 to 2013 which made him a household name and an instantly recognisable face on our screens.

But the 79-year-old told the Yeovil audience that when he was first invited to take the part of Poirot his older brother, television news journalist John Suchet, told him “not to touch it with a bargepole.” Fortunately, Sir David ignored his brother’s advice and he went on to spend 25 years playing the Belgian detective who he described as “the little man.”

After leaving Wellington School, Sir David joined the National Youth Theatre at the age of 16 and the rest you could say is history.

Sir David returned to his old school back in 2010 to officially open its new performing arts venue which he had helped raise money for in an appeal.

He said back then that it was at Wellington School where, as a student, he discovered his talent for acting after being asked to play Macbeth by his English teacher, Joe Store.

“As a result of that, the headmaster James Strader said to my father, for the first time in his life he's going to recommend that one of his pupils may consider the theatre as a career,” said Sir David.

“Joe Store then contacted the National Youth Theatre in Great Britain and got me an audition and I joined the National Youth Theatre and it was while I was there did I decide that I wanted to become a professional.”

But what next for Sir David? He told the Yeovil audience that he would soon be recording some audio books based on ghost stories by Charles Dickens, while he also revealed that there was something in the pipeline that he could not divulge but could be on our screens late next year.

He also exclusively revealed he would love to take part in a future series of Celebrity Traitors.