From this is London:<\/p>\n
Perhaps it’s the Da Vinci Code or Dan Brown or a fascination with Opus Dei, but I’ve been stunned by the amazing response,” says David Suchet, star of a gripping mystery thriller about to open in the West End following rave reviews at its Chichester premiere last month. “Letters and messages have been pouring in. It’s touched a nerve.”<\/p>\n
A pontiff found unexpectedly dead in bed, a crisis of faith and a nest of vipers in the Vatican – these are the fantastical true-life ingredients for Roger Crane’s new play The Last Confession, about Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciano), the “smiling” Italian who occupied St Peter’s throne in 1978 for only 33 days. Just weeks after his triumph as a burly, gravel-voiced Robert Maxwell in the BBC2 drama about the late tycoon, Suchet is tackling another fact-based role that once again centres around a sudden, unexplained death.<\/p>\n
Swathed in gorgeous scarlet, crucifix swinging, this brilliantly versatile actor plays Cardinal Benelli, who persuaded the reluctant John Paul to accept the Papacy then felt responsible for his early demise.<\/p>\n
“At the simplest level,” Suchet explains, “this is a dark thriller about who murdered John Paul I, the Church’s only really liberal, reforming and modernising Pope – if, indeed, he was murdered. On another, it’s about one man’s loss of faith, his bitterness and confusion, and a power struggle at the heart of the Catholic Church.”<\/p>\n