Inspecting Maigret As Rowan Atkinson becomes the latest TV version of Simenon's famous French sleuth, Mark Lawson looks back over six decades of hats, pipes, accordion music and murder
he opening paragraph of Georges Simenon's first novel about his most enduring character has the feel of instructions to an actor. "Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Flying Squad raised his eyes:' begins Pietr the Latvian. And the stage direction soon continues: "He pushed the telegram away, rose ponderously to his feet." This sense, in the new David Bellos translation for Penguin Classics, that Simenon was writing a camera script turned out to be prophetic because Rowan Atkinson, who assumes the part in a series of feature-length specials for ITV, follows several other small-screen Maigrets, including Rupert Davies and Michael Gambon in Britain, Jean Richard and Bruno Cremer in France and Gino Servi in Italy.
Maigret began as a closeup in the mind's eye of the writer. While drink足 ing in a cafe, Simenon, a Belgian who had moved to France to pursue a writing career, had an inspirational vision of a Parisian policeman, "a large powerfully built gentleman ... a pipe, a bowler hat, a thick overcoat".
This fleeting image, solidified as Jules Maigret, a commissaire of the Brigade Criminelle in Paris, served Simenon in 75 novels and 28 short stories published between 1931 and 1972. A rapid writer who thought novels should be short, he often published three Maigrets a year, though these policiers amounted to less than quarter of his eventual output of around 350 books. Simenon personally preferred his psychological novels with足 out a cop in them but it is Maigret whose ponderous manner was a prelude to eventual bursts of thrilling intuition -who has brilliantly outlived him.
While Atkinson is physically slight, he retains the clothing and the smoking, as any other decision would be like playing James Bond without wearing a dinner jacket. Even when Maurice Denham and Nicholas Le Prevost played the role, in Radio 4 adaptations, listen足 ers required the soundtrack to include the rasp of a match, the swish of a coat, the rap of hat landing on rack. The latest TV actor has also followed Davies (BBC, 1960-63) and Gambon (ITV, 1992-93) in giving the French cop a slightly posh English speaking voice, rather than any trace of a Gallic accent. For this reason, Cremer, who played