David Suchet was a guest at a lunch with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. When Suchet chose a mango from a fruit bowl but didn't know the proper way to peel it, the Duke demonstrated. Suchet later asked the scriptwriters to include the incident. On screen, Poirot peels the mango, and says, 'A duke taught me'."
The original name of this story is "The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding".
The house where Poirot stays for Christmas has been used in other stories such as "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim."
In the Agatha Christie story on which this is based, the name and nationality of the prince are unspecified. In this adaptation, he is the real life Prince Farouk, who would become King of Egypt in 1936 and reigned until his abdication in 1952.
The story has been published in several collections of Agatha Christie's short stories; "Double Sin and Other Stories" in the U.S.; "Adventure of the Christmas Pudding and Other Stories", "The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories", and "While the Light Lasts" in the U.K. and Europe.