| TV & Films |
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| Sexton Blake |
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My first actual 'paid for'
appearance on television was as an extra at a party in an episode of
this series which actually went out "live". There were actors and
cameras literally rushing from set to set and a wonderful feeling of
panic! |
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| Julius Caesar |
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The terrific director Alan
Bridges came to RADA and chose a dozen of us in our final year to be
Friends, Romans and Countrymen (extras) in his production which starred Robert
Stephens as Mark Anthony, Frank Finlay as Brutus and Edward Woodward as
Cassius. It was a fabulous opportunity, an incredible experience and
also got me my Equity card. |
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| A Family at War |
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My first speaking TV
appearance - I played Pilot Officer Teddy Main. Not knowing how 'big' to
play this larger than life character for the small screen (having done
only theatre) I don't think I made as much of him as I could have done.
However, they did want me to do some more episodes, but by this time I
was back at the Bristol Old Vic and so they killed me off in a bombing
raid over Berlin!! |
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| Owen MD |
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A really nice part in one of
the first episodes of this Doctor series starring Nigel Stock. I played
the boyfriend of the delightful Julia Goodman - we thought she (the
character) was
pregnant, but it all ended happily and she wasn't. |
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| On We Go |
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This was a film
series made by the BBC to teach English to foreign students all over the
World and we made it entirely at the fabulous Ealing Film Studios. The
director was the legendary Gilchrist Calder, the father was played by
Ronnie Howard (son of Leslie (Gone with the Wind) Howard and mother by
Patricia Lawrence (wife of Greville Poke) - it was a wonderfully happy
three and a half months during which I was even able to buy (and
thoroughly enjoy) one of the first Sony colour televisions to come on
the market! |
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| Harriett's Back in Town |
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I played a young Welsh
student in this fun afternoon soap
series with Pauline Yeats, William Russell and Edwin Richfield. After 6 weeks my contract ended and I said my goodbyes and the next
day they phoned my agent to say they missed me and would I like to do
another 6 weeks! I said 'Yes please' and asked for another £10 a week to
which they agreed and I bought a wonderfully warm sheepskin jacket with
the extra £60 |
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| Angels |
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A nice, if small, part in
this nurses series had me married to and arguing with the lovely Janina
Faye. |
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| Warship |
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We rehearsed this one and
just as we were to go into the studio to record it, the technicians went
on strike! A few weeks later those of us who were still available
were booked to do it all again and so we got two fees! It was the first
time I worked with Bryan Marshall and Andrew Burt. The episode was
called The Buccaneer and involved me being filmed in a real one (but
only on the ground) - bad
for the claustrophobia! |
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| Edward VII |
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I played a young Winston
Churchill and had to deliver the wonderful line (in Churchillian tones)
"It is the end of an era" when Edward (Timothy West) finally died.
Working with wonderful actors and actresses on such a well produced and
prestigious production was simply fabulous. |
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| For Tea on Sunday |
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A strange 6 handed play written and
directed by Don Taylor with Jonathan Pryce, Alison Fiske and Ronald Pickup. |
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| Raffles |
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We made a pilot episode
which was incredibly well received and then waited for months to see if
we were going to make the series. We went on to make 13 more episodes
and I got to work with some wonderful actors - Anthony Valentine for
starters, Robert Hardy, William Mervyn, Robert Lang,
Caroline Blakiston, Brian Glover, John Carson, Alfred Marks etc.etc. |
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| Eustace and Hilda Trilogy |
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A great deal of this series
was filmed in the area where L.P.Hartley had lived near Hunstanton on
the west coast of Norfolk and so we were on location for weeks at a
time. The wonderful Susan Fleetwood was Hilda, and Robert Stephens,
Billie Whitelaw and Flora Robson were also in it. I remember reading the
original script where it said 'Eustace - in Venice' and got very
excited. I shouldn't have. They built my bit of Venice
(magnificently, with trays of water bouncing lights off the walls) at
Ealing Studios and then, when Robert and I were meant to be in a gondola
on the Grand Canal we sat shivering in a gondola on Ruislip Lido at
three o'clock one morning!! This is one of the productions with which I
remain most proud to have been involved - beautifully directed by
Desmond Davis. |
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| SOS Titanic |
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For several weeks the
Director (Billy Hale) told me he wanted me to play the part David Warner
ultimately played. He was phoning me from the USA (in the days when it
used to cost over a pound a minute!!) to tell me all about it - then one
day he phoned to say he'd cast Susan Saint James as the character's
other half and so, sadly, I was too young . . would I, however, please
play a small part in the film! Of course I would! I played the radio
operator on the Carpathia and by the time the front credits roll, my
performance is finished! My dear chum Peter Fontaine was also in this
Movie but we didn't meet until years later! |
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| Only When I Laugh |
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It was always terrific to
get up in the morning, get to work and then get back into bed! We made
four series in all and I believe it was top of the ratings every time.
It was a lot of fun but also a great deal of hard work. To do a TV show
'live' in front of 400 people is always daunting - especially when it is
then going to be seen by seventeen million on the telly in a week's time. I think
doing sit-com like that was one of the most nerve wracking things I've
done as an actor - especially as you've only had four days rehearsal! |
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| Gentle Folk |
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One of my most favourite jobs
ever. We filmed it all on location at Socknersh - a beautiful house in
East Sussex - and we had such a distinguished cast: Denholm Elliott,
Freddie Treves, Rosalie Crutchley, Ursula Howells and
Sheila Ruskin etc.
Rodney Bennett directed it with a wonderful eye for detail and I thought
it turned out to be a lovely film. |
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| Romeo and Juliet |
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Not a huge success overall,
I think it's fair to say.
Wonderful cast - Sir John Gielgud, Dame Celia Johnson, Michael Hordern,
Alan Rickman in his first telly etc.etc.; but . . . . I played Benvolio with a long black wig and lost. |
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| Rising Damp - the Movie |
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This was not a happy
experience for me. Richard Beckinsale had died only recently (he was a
friend - we were at RADA together) and I was
asked to take over his role. Leonard Rossiter wanted me to play it just
like Richard would have done - something which I couldn't have done had
I wanted to and didn't want to anyway as I wanted to try and make it my own.
Frances de la Tour,
Don Warrington and Denholm Elliott and indeed the Director Joe McGrath
were all delightful to work with but Mr Rossiter managed to make the
whole experience one of the unhappiest of my whole career. |
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| Measure for Measure |
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This was a good production
directed by Desmond Davis with Kate Nelligan, Kenneth Colley & Tim Piggott-Smith. I played
Claudio. |
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| Room for an Inward Light |
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A half hour ghost story with Brian
Blessed. We filmed it down in Bristol and it was great fun to do. |
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| Aubrey Beardsley |
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I don't remember much about
this production, I'm afraid. I do remember I had quite a few scenes
with the delightful Ronnie Lacey and that he and I got on extremely well. |
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| Arms and the Man |
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This was for Scottish
Schools and was most enjoyable. It is about the only Bernard Shaw play I
actually like! |
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| Strangers and Brothers |
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I played a priest in this
series and I remember having to fly back from Dublin in a tiny plane
after a Saturday evening show to film early on the Sunday. The sky was
full of electrical storms and the pilot had to weave all over the place,
in and around the lightning,
trying to avoid them all - a frightening experience - and I was
delighted to land safely. |
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| Parlez Franglais |
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This etait certainement
great fun. Avec Richenda Carey et Susan Penhalligon. |
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| A Crack in the Ice |
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This was a play that I was
so keen to do that I turned down the possibility of a Disney movie to
make sure I was available for it. It turned out to be good, but not as
successful as I'd foolishly anticipated. Fabulous cast - Timothy Spall,
Freddie Jones, Benjamin Whitrow, Tony Caunter etc. etc. |
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| Dempsey and Makepeace |
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I played a baddy and ended
up being chased up and down deserted streets in South London by the
delectable Makepeace. The trouble was, I was on foot and she was in a
car! By the third take I was totally knackered! Then she cornered me and
got out of the car and we had a fist fight - except she forgot to pull
her punches and I got well and truly winded. Wished I'd been allowed to
make more use of my stuntman! |
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| Lytton's Diary |
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Another baddy - this time
with Peter Bowles (but we were both out of our dressing gowns.) The
theme music for this short-lived series was composed by my dear old golfing
buddy Rick Wakeman. |
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| Full House |
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This was a major
disappointment. A pilot had been written by the incredible team of Brian
Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer and worked pretty well. We went on to make
two series with the lovely director Peter Frasier Jones which were
popular and successful enough to get to number 5 in the ratings. Just
before we were about to make the third and final series, Thames suddenly
changed the director to someone who obviously had no desire to do it or
indeed any liking for any of we four actors. The show lost all of the
momentum we'd worked so hard to achieve and it all ended on a very sad
and sour note. |
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| Victoria Wood Show |
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Great fun. It was fantastic working with the wonderful Victoria on the delightfully silly
sketch 'Flatmates' - you can actually see it on
YouTube by clicking
here or on the camera (left) if you'd like to see just how silly it
was. |
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| Fortunes of War |
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We filmed this in Egypt
(Cairo and Alexandria), Greece (Athens and the Peloponnese) and London
(Ealing Film Studios) and it was a tremendous experience. Such a cast of
distinguished actors - Kenneth Brannagh, Emma Thompson, Charles Kay,
Ronald Pickup, Esmond Knight and it was the third and last time I worked
with Robert Stephens. Alan Bennett and I found we had three days off
from filming while we were in Cairo and so we managed to pop on an
overnight train and go down to Karnak and the Valley of the Kings -
Tutankhamen and Alan Bennett - simply incredible. |
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| Home Shopping Club |
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I made a video presentation
for them whilst we were living in Florida - with an American accent too
- the cheek of it! |
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| Bergerac |
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A small part for me in not
one of the greatest of episodes. It was very nice to do the filming in
Jersey. |
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| Down to Earth |
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In the very first episode I
played the VAT officer who forced Warren Clarke's character to close his
London business because he hadn't been charging VAT when he should have
been. So, if it hadn't been for me, the series would never have
started!! |
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| Doctors |
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I played a scruffy 'red
herring' character and it was nice to catch up with Christopher Timothy
again. We'd first worked together 30 something years earlier (in the
Julius Caesar TV production.) |
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| Waking the Dead |
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They blew me up in a car and
in flashback - but they were all very nice and charming about it. |
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