Phil Davis: The Biggest Little Man

Phil Davis never quite became an A-lister but, for me, he remains more watchable than most who rake in the megabucks at the supposed top of the tree. Like me, he’s Essex-raised and only 5 ft 5 tall, but there the similarities end. These days, he’s more in demand than ever but back in the late Seventies and Eighties, his appearance in a TV trailer or Radio Times cast list pinpointed a drama well worth seeing. Despite his lack of inches, he could exude a sense of menace purely by opening his mouth; he has the scariest set of teeth in the history of acting! 

I’m certain Davis (then billed as a more formal Philip) first came to my attention in 1977 when he starred as a troubled teenager holding his teacher hostage on the last day of school in Barrie Keeffe’s Gotcha. I was hardly a delinquent 15 year-old myself but I was agog at the disturbing and thought-provoking drama, one of many powerful political Plays for Today broadcast in an era of high unemployment and low expectations. 

I don’t recall his roles in Target and The Professionals around the same time, but I’m willing to bet he wasn’t playing a respectable accountant, more likely fist-fodder for Patrick Mower and Lewis Collins! I’ve also somehow missed out on the movie Quadrophenia, in which he was also prominent as a ne’er-do-well scooter-riding Mod, not to mention the brutal borstal-set play Scum. This was too violent even for  1970s telly, but it later resurfaced as a movie, again featuring our Philip, alongside the even more intimidating Ray Winstone. 

Ten years later Davis had matured into fully-fledged gangster material, playing the head of an Eighties football hooligan mob in The Firm. His principal rival was played by the equally superb Gary Oldman, in the week a respectable married dad and estate agent, but come the weekend a sadistic thug. Oldman was at his most chilling but Phil’s bleach-blond hair came close. It was quite a shocking depiction of ‘firms’ which operated in parallel with the football clubs they purported to support but ended up showing them up not as respectable pillars of their working–class communities but as ultra-violent criminals. Hopefully this play helped dismantle the system but the launch in 1992 of the squeaky-clean Premier League era thankfully finished them off for good. 

Heading for his late twenties, Davis couldn’t play nasty teenagers forever, and in 1980 was a helpful London lad trying to direct lost alien Peter Firth in The Flip Side of Dominick Hide (he’s about four minutes into this clip). Seven years on and he was a Stetson-wearing driver in the Beeb’s amiable series Truckers but I missed his stint as King John in Robin of Sherwood, presumably back in nasty mode.

However, by this time, Philip (I don’t think he lost the ‘ip’ ‘til the Nineties) had become a fully-fledged member of Mike Leigh’s ensemble, alongside the likes of Alison Steadman, Janine Duvitski and Lesley Manville. Whether on the big or small screen, Davis is always a joy in the semi-improvised comedies, inhabiting the real characters so beloved of the playwright/director. I forget whether I watched the original broadcast (I was in a hall of residence so doubt whether a BBC2 play would have been on the communal TV set) or a subsequent repeat but I do recall seeing Grown Ups. I don’t think he played a particularly likeable character and his trademark sneer, backed by a jaw stacked with those gnashers, was used to full effect. 

Catching his performances in the twenty-first century has been a bit hit-and-miss. In 2002, Phil was a veteran hack in a so-so conspiracy thriller Fields of Gold and in the same year appeared in Channel 4’s adaptation of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth. I wonder if the director had an impudent sense of fun casting an actor whose facial features could by themselves have played the title role! For reasons I forget I don’t think I stuck with the series but Phil was excellent as ever. I also missed his leading part in ITV’s Rose and Maloney but never mind. 

Whereas once he was frequently found on the wrong side of the law, even suspected of attempted murder but defended by Leo McKern in Rumpole of the Bailey, the middle-aged Davis has mostly been found on TV amongst the forces of law and order. For several years he was the sceptic on Rupert Penry-Jones’ team investigating spooky murders in ITV’s Whitechapel then with the same co-star and the marvellous Maxine Peake in the more weighty legal drama Silk. He was in another set of chambers in 2016’s Undercover and only this year providing the narration for BBC2’s Murder 24/7 documentaries. 

However, only a few months ago it was wonderful to see Davis, his teeth concealed by a straggly beard, playing a paedophile. No offence, Phil, but he’s an actor born to play the scruffy bad guy. Nobody does it better.