Morven Christie - A is for Awesome

If you’d asked me just seven years ago what I thought of Morven Christie my response would have been something along the lines of: “Unusual name. Who is he?” Since then, she has so rapidly ascended the ladder of TV stardom that the actor from Helensburgh has earned the right to round off my list of Treasures. At 39 she is probably the most junior of the hundred, young enough to be Brian Blessed’s grand-daughter, yet has few peers on the box in the 2020s. 

That original anonymity could have various explanations. She doesn’t look like an archetypal leading lady, doesn’t crave celebrity status and hasn’t even done Game of Thrones. Is it down to her Scottish origins? Did she simply appear in stuff I never watched? Well, maybe it’s a hodgepodge of the above. A glance at her IMDB profiles proves I did see her in various programmes prior to 2016 and yet somehow neither her face nor name leapt out at me. She had a small role in the comedy Twenty Twelve and the same year was in the cast of Hunted, a cliché-ridden thriller featuring kickass heroine Melissa George. Two years later she featured in a Silent Witness two-parter as a generic ponytailed Detective Sergeant whose case requires our crime-busting pathologists. No, me neither. Same story with her role as Philip Glenister’s daughter in Mancunian drama From There to Here. She even did some running around in cap and ponytail in a few Doctor Who instalments. 

However, it was a chance viewing of another BBC crime story, in BBC2’s Murder anthology, that alerted me to Morven Christie as someone to remember. OK, she was another DS – a rank which seems to follow her to the present day – but there was no ignoring her, thanks to the bold format of having the lead character addressing the viewer directly to convey her feelings about the case and her own life. The series title was pretty ordinary but I thought the format was brilliantly original and Christie a memorable lead. 

She may not be top of the police food chain but her niche has nonetheless elevated her to the star of ITV’s The Bay. The first series was essentially Broadchurch relocated north to Morecambe but with the neat initial twist of Morvern’s character Lisa Armstrong having alcohol-fuelled alleyway sex with someone who turns out to be a leading suspect in a missing children case she’s investigating. Does she come clean regarding her indiscretions and provide Jonas Armstrong with an alibi or does she prevaricate and make matters worse? Naturally, to make the plot more interesting it’s the latter, and it all made for a gripping watch. 

Of course, this being primetime drama, she solves the case but, by breaking the law she is temporarily busted to DC for the recent sequel. The strength of the character and Morven’s portrayal lies not in any frantic car chases or blinding flashes of super-sleuth inspiration but instead a sense of empathy with victims and emotional scenes with her teenage children and ex, into which she draws us in to her mental tug-of-wars.

It hasn’t all been a litany of cops and killers. While I haven’t watched any episodes of Grantchester, Angie and I were in the living room audience for The Replacement. The opening episodes grabbed you by the throat, as maternity leave cover Vicky McClure progressively took over the clients, trust and career of her helpless predecessor played by Christie. It all came to an implausible ending but it was unsettlingly nerve-tingling stuff. 

Considerably less frothy is The A Word. As someone with a perhaps unhealthy preference for crime mysteries, a drama about the impact on a family of Joe, a boy with autism, would not ordinarily be a major draw. However, we gave it a go, and the three series have developed into ‘must-sees’. As I’ve mentioned before, notably in connection with another ‘Treasure’, Christopher Eccleston, The A Word has deftly avoided being a worthy box-ticking exercise, injecting humour as well as showing young people with disabilities as human beings with independent minds. Besides the writing, this owes a great deal to the leads Morven Christie and Lee Ingleby. They bring warmth and realism to the parents whose relationship becomes brittle under the strain. The latest series showcased both actors’ excellence and, in particular, Morven’s. We all desperately want happiness for her character Alison, while understanding that family bonds will ultimately trump everything.  

It’s reassuring to find a female actor so adept at reaching beyond the outdated sex object and, like Nicola Walker to name but one, creating strong female roles at the heart of small screen drama. The days of the man as the automatic lead above the title, as it were, are thankfully long gone, and long may the like of Morven Christie lead the new wave.

Brian Blessed - The Bearded Foghorn!

I’ve never actually been in the presence of Brian Blessed. I write that with a high degree of certainty because I imagine that, like a gathering thunderstorm or an approaching steam locomotive at full speed, I’d hear him long before he hove into view. Surely I’m not alone in automatically associating the actor not with a specific role but his extraordinary booming baritone.

And his beard runs the voice a close second. That forest of facial fur has been part of his persona since the days when I thought beards were the sole preserve of pirates and possibly seventeenth-century French swordsmen. I’m too young to have witnessed Blessed’s big break in Z Cars back in 1962 but am pretty sure my six year-old self re-enacted with sticks or knitting needles scenes from the BBC’s adaptation of The Three Musketeers. I’m not convinced however, that Porthos’ neatly sculpted goatee was natural. 

By the late Sixties, Mum and Dad were in the habit of watching The Avengers and on a Saturday evening (I think) I was sometimes allowed to join them. I don’t suppose I could follow the plots; not sure anybody could, but for me it was all about dapper Steed’s lethal furled umbrella. I may have seen the episode in 1969 featuring a pencil-moustachioed army sergeant who loved to shout. Yes, Brian Blessed was perfectly cast! 

I can’t recall whether or not he was shaven for appearances in gentle Welsh medical soap Owen MD but, in accordance with Imperial Rome’s disdain for facial hair, his generous jawline was clean for one of his most celebrated dramatic parts as the Emperor Augustus in I Claudius. This was more Dad’s cup of tea than mine but, as a teenager with some interest in history, I did my best to follow the rather heavy, studio-bound action.  The series also introduced me to young actors of the calibre of John Hurt and Derek Jacobi but I do recall Blessed dominating the stage in several episodes, either raging or, in an extraordinary death scene, being completely silent for several minutes, acting only with fading eyes. 

By the mid-Seventies, Augustus apart, the dye was cast with our Brian portraying all manner of bearded baddies. In The Sweeney he came to a sticky end while in the gripping BBC series Survivors he was a brutal bully who runs his post-apocalyptic community his way or no way. In Blake’s 7, his megalomania extended to designs on the entire galaxy then in the convoluted Cyprus thriller The Aphrodite Inheritance he made an excellent armed brigand.  

Blessed’s physical qualities also makes for an imposing king in the traditional style. For example, he was a romping Richard IV in the original Black Adder series and the fearsome warlord Yrcanos in a 1986 Doctor Who serial, not to mention assorted Barons, Squires and Shakespearean dukes but even when he appears as himself he’s always formidable and a tad unpredictable. With an infamous potty mouth the bleeping machine and editors have doubtless worked overtime after recordings of Room 101, A Question of Sport and his ‘Gotcha!’ sequence whilst being ‘pranked’ on Noel’s House Party. He certainly made an idiosyncratic presenter of Have I Got News For You?! 

Brian is also famed as a real-life adventurer. Who else would climb some of the world’s highest peaks, undergo full astronaut training in Russia and become the oldest man ever to reach the North Pole on foot. His expeditions have provided fertile ground for anecdotes on programmes including QI and The Kumars. Legend has it he even punched a polar bear on the nose. From anyone else you’d write it off as fanciful fiction but with Mr B, anything is possible.

Yet the actor can be a sensitive soul. I loved his journey back in time to discover the highs and lows experienced by his bookbinder ancestor on Who Do You Think You Are, revealing both his bombastic Yorkshire bluster and a more reflective side. Nevertheless it’s that deafening delivery which is Brian Blessed’s USP. It continues to bolster his bank balance through numerous, audioplays, computer game voicing. His Grampy Rabbit on Peppa Pig episodes is always a delight (wasted on young children!) but it’s his TV ads which always stand out. Only a few minutes ago he was urging me to buy Terry’s Chocolate Orange and his larger-than-life persona was exploited in a recent Ladbroke’s campaign. Ah, Brian Blessed: never knowingly under-voiced!

Matt Lucas - The Face of Countless Characters

Sketch, or ‘broken’ comedy generally takes one of two forms: the Mainstream (mostly funny, often associated with one or two well-known names, broadcast on BBC1, ITV, Sky One) and the Alternative (hit and miss, often bizarre, featuring an ensemble cast, broadcast on BBC2 or Channel 4). In the former camp you might find Catherine Tate, Lenny Henry or Harry Enfield while the latter would be populated by the likes of Monty Python, Big Train or The Fast Show. Little Britain and Come Fly With Me would be uneasy bedfellows, which demonstrates the versatility of Matt Lucas. 

I know both shows are essentially two-handers, performing and writing duties shared with David Walliams, but for me it’s all about Lucas. David is the more outrageous but most of his characters are basically the same - grotesque women – while Matt is the superior, more subtle actor.

Then there’s his unique appearance. I suspect losing his hair to alopecia at the age of six must have been unimaginably traumatic but for an adult comedian the resulting baldness must be a boon. Like those games we had as children, where you had an outline head on which to design hair and beards with magnet and iron filings, Matt’s bonce is a brilliant blank canvas on which to create superb comedy characters, albeit with the contents of make-up boxes and costume wardrobes. 

Having said that, the first time I ever saw him was almost certainly in BBC2’s Shooting Stars, with no wig at all. Back in the Nineties, much of Matt Lucas’ TV work was surreal art-house stuff, from Blur and Fat Les videos and cameos with Reeves and Mortimer. I’ve written before that I always found Vic and Bob’s comedy too oddball for my taste and Shooting Stars, though resembling a panel game show, totally defied categorisation. It was basically another vehicle for the duo’s somewhat eccentric humour, into which Matt’s George Dawes, adorned inexplicably in a pink romper suit, fitted like a baby’s mitten. When the show was revived in 2009, he was a household name and could indulge in seemingly improvised wacky chat with celebrity guests like Dizzee Rascal as capably as the main stars. 

The Reeves and Mortimer connection continued in 2001 with a role as a mischievous ghost in Reeves and Hopkirk (Deceased) but there were also parts in sketch series Punt & Dennis and French & Saunders, which I also enjoyed watching. Around the turn of the millennium, Lucas turned up again with a new comedy partner called David Walliams in tow. I’m pretty sure I never watched it on UK Play but I did sneak a peek at Rock Profile when screened on BBC2. It was very akin to Reeves and Mortimer: the two stars appearing as disturbingly dark versions of musicians being interviewed by Jamie Theakston. Matt could portray anyone from Prince and Boy George to George Michael and Shirley Bassey! Too weird for me to watch every week but it could be very funny. 

The same applied in 2003 when Little Britain first broke out from Radio 4 to BBC3, and I was compelled by peer pressure to give it a try. The Tom Baker narration treats it as a documentary about typical British people but of course most of the Lucas/Walliams characters are either freaky, creepy or downright deeply unpleasant, the sort you’d move house to avoid. For example, I had a particular aversion to the slack-jawed wheelchair-user Andy who, unbeknown to his long-suffering carer Lou, was only pretending to be disabled. How could he be so cruel and selfish? And yet, thanks partly to Matt’s acting, I eventually cast aside such antipathy to enjoy the pair’s sketches. They were like mini-pantomimes; you wanted to shut “Behind you!” at poor Lou for as soon as his back was turned, his charge would leave his seat and ride a horse dive into a swimming pool or beat up a gang of bullies. Then there were his catchphrases, “Yeah I know…” and “Want that one…” I still use to this day. 

The outrageously camp Dafydd, determinedly “The Only Gay in the Village” even when faced with clear evidence to the contrary, was another Lucas triumph. The local landlady was played by Ruth Jones, at that time unfamiliar to me. By 2009, Dafydd managed to leave his Welsh village to interview a certain Elton John on Comic Relief. It still worked as the basic joke was that we all knew that Dafydd wasn’t the only gay in the palace… 

Other characters included the racist Marjorie Dawes who runs a slimming club while constantly mocking fat people and the flamboyantly obese Bubbles de Vere but my all-time favourite has to be West Country teenage ‘chav’ Vicky Pollard. How Matt Lucas managed to reel off her rapid-fire unintelligible explanations amazes me. The accent and attitude seemed cartoonish – until I found myself in Barnstaple for  work one afternoon in 2005. Walking towards the town centre I passed a gaggle of girls sitting on a wall, and the voices were pure Vicky. All that was missing was someone blurting, “Yeah but no but yeah but no but…..”! 

Little Britain ran for three domestic series, plus a USA follow-up and various one-offs or Comic Relief specials then, instead of churning out the old characters Lucas and Walliams returned in Christmas 2010 with a new venture Come Fly With Me. It was essentially Little Britain but in mockumentary format, set entirely in an airport populated by all-new characters. Personally I thought it much funnier than its celebrated predecessor. From the lazy West Indian coffee stall manager Precious (“Praise the lorrdd!”) and ground crew Taaj (“Innit”) to shady paparazzi, bitchy check-in girls and Japanese girls stalking Martin Clunes, there was so much to enjoy. As so often, it was the Matt Lucas characters who were more memorable. While Walliams would parade in wild lipstick or fake tan, Matt was the chameleon, equally credible as the daftly deluded Scottish boy Tommy and the middle-aged hen-pecked husband Peter, forever experiencing what his serial complainer wife called their “holiday from hell”. They were my faves. Such a shame only six episodes were made. 

More recently both series have attracted criticism for supposedly racist and sexist stereotyping. Now, I’ve never been comfortable with ‘blacking up’ but neither do I find cross-dressing for comedic effect remotely amusing, and where would British comedy be without that?!. However, the whole point of LB and CFWM was that we can laugh at ourselves the blatant caricatures and their instant catchphrases, almost all of which were uttered by Matt Lucas. 

In the past decade or so, he has become a hugely versatile and influential writer, performer and LGBT+ campaigner. He has reciprocated roles in friends’ own series, such as Gavin and Stacey and another Ruth Jones comedy Stella and also appeared in Russell T Davies’ Casanova and Doctor Who, playing the comical alien, duffle coat-wearing Nardole in several adventures. 

I also saw him on screen as a splendidly energetic Thenardier belting out ‘Master of the House’ in the 25^th anniversary concert production of Les Miserables. He’s not the best singer in the world but comic timing and a cheeky face can get you far! Only last year he found a new audience on Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off. Obviously I would never dream of wasting my time watching a cookery programme but Matt’s introductory Boris Johnson Covid briefing spoof deserved wider exposure on YouTube and Facebook. 

OK, so I can’t rave about everything he’s done, but Matt Lucas is a modern master of character sketch comedy with the potential to do a whole load more in the future.

Nicola Walker - the least starry of stars

In little over two decades, Nicola Walker has crawled deftly and diligently under the radar up into the Premier League of TV drama. To have done so without flashy starring roles, a parallel career in the movies, hackneyed fashion shoots or the spotlight of tabloid celeb columns is quite remarkable. But it is thoroughly deserved. Researching this, I hadn’t realised how many of her series I had missed – from Chalk to Babylon, River to Torn – but luckily there are so many I have been privileged to watch. 

Probably the first time Nicola came to my attention was in 1999 when she had a major role as an MoD scientist trapped in a railway tunnel with cryogenic gas and a miscellaneous bunch of passengers in The Last Train. I won’t deny I was initially hooked by the idea of a mystery set aboard a train but this apocalyptic sci-fi serial proved an entertaining mix of drama and fantasy. A year later she was another young mystery woman in a Dalziel and Pascoe episode: is she who she says she is, and will her past come back to haunt her?  I forget the answer to the first but am pretty sure the second can be answered in the affirmative. 

Around the same period, Nicola also began to win roles as police officers, and this particular career thread continues to this day. Fortunately she has specialised not as a stereotypical all-action, bed-hopping maverick but as a competent but angst-ridden detective with recognisable human frailties. I doubt there was much to sink her canines into as a WPC (that’s what they were still called back then) in a 1998 Jonathan Creek but in Paul Abbott’s excellent Touching Evil she was swiftly raised to a plain-clothed Inspector alongside Robson Green. In 2004 she was transferred to the army as an unglamorous horsey Major in the BBC’s Red Cap before a police promotion to DCI beckoned in Prisoners’ Wives, a hard-hitting drama a far cry from other, more salacious series featuring the ‘Wives’ moniker. 

Only last month, she was back in hometown London for the fourth series of ITV’s ever-watchable Unforgotten. While the budget is clearly substantial enough to attract superb supporting casts, and Sanjeev Bhaskar as a sidekick, the programme’s heartbeat is Nicola Walker as DCI Cassie Stuart. She doesn’t get to smile much, unsurprising given the often gruesome scenes she witnesses or the mental anguish arising out of family problems such as her dad’s descent into dementia. However, we are treated to her full array of subtle facial tics, nervous smiles and gestures, as she carries us on her journey with Bhaskar’s ‘Sunny’ to solving a cold case. Regarding the latest series conclusion I won’t risk a spoiler…. 

Her best roles are those when her character is torn between the job and family or personal relationships, and they don’t have to involve the police force. Another recent hit drama is BBC One’s The Split. It’s not a thriller, there are no bodies. Instead, Nicola portrays a fair-haired divorce lawyer who sometimes finds herself brokering reconciliations while her own marriage to the oh-so-nice Stephen Mangan goes down the tubes. Such family dramas don’t always hold my attention for long, but even I have been enthralled by its two series, and I’d expect there to be more. 

So far, so standard middle-class fare. But very occasionally, Walker steps into left-field territory. In 2018’s Collateral, a convoluted thriller featuring the likes of Carey Mulligan, John Simm and Billie Piper, she played a lesbian vicar. Best of all, when I finally caught up on the first series of Luther, I was delighted, shocked even, to find her in the role of working-class wife whose bloke turns out to be a murderer. Blimey! 

Nevertheless if there is one character which has defined Nicola Walker more than any other, it’s probably Ruth Evershed in Spooks. She joined the cast in series two way back in 2003, making an ignominious entrance into MI5 as a bit of a clumsy hippy-dippy transfer from GCHQ but went on to become one of the best loved characters. Ruth was not one of the good-looking stars running around shooting suspected terrorists but harvested the intelligence for our heroes to act upon, an ideal part for Walker’s unflashy style.

Occasionally Ruth was allowed out into the real world, even managing to let her hair down and find herself in a spot of bother then, following Nicola’s real-life maternity break, she made a popular return to ‘The Grid’ in series eight. Hardcore Spooks fans seem more fixated on her ‘will-they-won’t-they?’ relationship with boss Harry, equally shy and inept in matters of expressing feelings. However, for me Spooks was never supposed to be romantic fiction but, in my view, the professional v personal quandary enabled Nicola Walker to turn in some of her finest acting.

Huw Edwards - the most reassuring voice on TV

I’ve mentioned before the significant contribution made to my TV education by news correspondents but even more fundamental are the men and women who front the bulletins. As a young child, I hated the News. There’s only so many starving children in Biafra, grainy shots of US troops in Vietnam, Budget debates or Industrial Relations Acts a boy can take, let alone understand. And the presentation format hardly helped. 

The Beeb’s main newsreaders were Richard Baker, Kenneth Kendall and Robert Dougall, each oozing trust and authority but with impeccably private education speaking voices honed in the Reithian Corporation since the early Fifties, they weren’t exactly lively. And they were firmly rooted behind a desk. Fortunately, like society generally, the news broadcaster’s role has changed substantially in my lifetime.

For starters, the personnel became more diverse. Some must have thought the world was ending in the Seventies when women were introduced. Yet for all their femininity Anna Ford, Angela Rippon and Jan Leeming perpetuated the old-school sound of TV news, still sounding cloyingly posh. ITN’s Trevor MacDonald signalled a further change in the Nineties, bringing a Caribbean lilt to proceedings and fellow former foreign correspondents like John Humphrys, Michael Buerk, Peter Sissons and Mark Austin have stepped out of the firing line and into the relative safety of a studio with great success. 

Technological advances have also changed the whole purpose of TV News. Satellites, video and digital editing have turned the bulletin from the staid and static into a fast-moving mosaic of live ‘two-ways’ with reporters on the spot all over the globe, studio interviews and recorded filmed reports. Consequently, the evening News has become a much more engaging programme and the presenter’s role has become much more complex. Bringing the autocue words to life was a skill in itself but now there are complicated, time-constrained conversations, writing links, and the increasing importance to engage with the viewer, and that requires the presenter to show some personality, be more like us. Headlines are everywhere these days, so broadcasts need to explain and place those headlines into context. I do despair that ITV bulletin scripts have been dumbed down to an embarrassing degree but the past year’s stranglehold on the agenda of Brexit and Covid-19 have further demonstrated to me the value of a news presenter – and Huw Edwards ticks every single box. 

With his trademark oblique stance and slightly upturned corner of the mouth, you know there’s always a slight twinkle in the eye awaiting its opportunity to shine. However, there’s a time and place. Twenty years ago he had some pretty serious subjects to handle on the Six o’Clock News, from the catastrophic Foot & Mouth outbreak to the horrors of 9/11. I think I was watching when Edwards brokered a live discussion from Westminster with two jovial Labour politicians who nonetheless harboured opposite opinions on electoral reform. Despite Alan Johnson’s use of the word ‘Bullshit” (shock, horror!) he entered into the spirit and handled it delightfully. 

Huw has fronted coverage of elections everywhere, from the Wales devolution and EU membership referenda to local authority polls, General elections (of which there have been a plethora in recent years) and those abroad including the calamitous US presidential vote of 2020. David Dimbleby’s ownership of the microphone for the major solemn events has also come under a serious challenge from Mr Edwards. Whether reporting from the State Opening of Parliament, royal weddings or funerals, I’d rather hear the lyrical Welsh lilt to public school English.

He’s even an accomplished location broadcaster, handy when a major story demands that the primetime news presenter is actually on the spot, such as after the Grenfell Tower fire. Edwards is not just about News either. Paxman and Humphrys have exploited their reputation as interrogators in quiz shows, while the boy from Bridgend has also mastered the art of documentary-making, specially related to the nation of his birth. Whether addressing the camera standing heroically on clifftops, striding through meadows or rowing across lakes, he was the ideal multi-tasker to front The History of Wales. It also demonstrated his proud bilingualism.

Huw’s flair for languages is matched by his creative talent, and several Christmases ago he even accompanied Tom Jones on piano in a BBC trail. Beat that, Fiona Bruce! He’s also an entertainer, as illustrated by his 2012 turn on Would I Lie To You?  Check out the clip to see if he would! Lately he has probably priced himself out of BBC Wales roles but Huw Edwards, now a silver fox (only six weeks younger than me!), is always a welcome, trusty, reassuring presence on my telly.

Tim McInnerny - the biggest, baddest forehead in the business

Tim McInnerny, like many actors, is on record as saying “It’s always nice to play a bastard”. This is just as well because in recent years the hard-hearted sod has been meat and drink to this Oxford-educated Cheshire lad. His distinctive piggy eyes deep set beneath an unfeasibly high forehead don’t scream ‘leading man’ but as a character actor par excellence he’s always in demand.

Despite this twenty-first century specialisation as unpleasant Establishment types, he is probably best known for portraying pompous, upper-class idiots in the Blackadder series. His debut was in the disappointing pre-Ben Elton medieval The Black Adder but with the rest of the cast, he hit his stride as the sycophantic Lord Percy Percy in Blackadder II. A few years later he switched personalities in Blackadder Goes Forth to play Captain Darling. The name was a comedy gift which kept on giving as his officious staff officer constantly found himself engaged in confusing conversations with his barmy boss (Stephen Fry) and unwinnable tussles with Rowan Atkinson’s cruel and bitter titular anti-hero. And yet, come the emotional finale, Darling becomes more human and sympathetic in the face of certain death as a result of going ‘over the top’ and he is present and correct for the climactic scene. 

The nomenclature followed him into subsequent one-off revivals like 1999’s Blackadder Back and Forth, notably in an amusing, albeit politically incorrect, Napoleonic scene stuffed full of French stereotyping like a factory of foie gras. That wasn’t it for Tim the comedy star. Casting aside his part in Westlife’s ‘Uptown Girl’ video (if only I could do the same for the Irish stool-perchers), he also appeared in a few Channel 4 Comic Strip mini-films broadcast in 1990. They were darker in tone than most, and not Peter Richardson’s finest works, but quite amusing nonetheless. In one, Tim was playing an inept hit-man and in Les Dogs played the groom’s father in a wedding reception which degenerated into a blood-soaked gun battle. I was wary of attending family do’s for years! In 2012 he was back in period costume as the starchy and mysterious Harmswell Grimstone in BBC2 Dickens spoof The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff, but by then he’d become a staple of yer proper drama. 

Indeed, McInnerny’s IMDB listing reads as What’s What of some of the best series I’ve watched in the past four decades. It seems faintly ludicrous that he should have played the boyfriend and suspected killer of Bob Peck’s daughter in the superb plutonium conspiracy thriller Edge of Darkness, but then 1985 was an awfully long time ago. That luminous expanse between eyebrows and hairline was already in evidence, though and it had almost completely taken over his head by the time Tim’s oily Ood slave owner merited one of the most gruesome transformations in the long history of Doctor Who, courtesy of what the character believed to be hair replacement medication. 

In between there were roles as an MI5 anti-Left conspirator in Channel 4’s A Very British Coup and as another arrogant and even more senior British Intelligence boss, with a very wayward moral compass, in early series of Spooks. As antagonist-in-chief to our hero Harry, Tim’s Oliver Mace was as nasty a bureaucratic creep you’d ever meet on screen, but he had rivals to the crown. In 2009 he was both a corrupt judge targeted by the Robin Hood-ish conmen in Hustle and a dodgy mill owner and politician in the sights of Inspector George Gently. Two years later he was a civil servant in the most-watched episode in the New Tricks canon and only last year the Tory government Chief Whip in The Trial of Christine Keeler. 

Before the onset of middle-age paunch, he portrayed a creep of a different sort in The Vice, as a porn film producer with a rarely-used London accent, a deranged new partner of the lead’s ex-wife in Lynda La Plante’s 2002 Trial and Retribution crime thriller and a seventeenth-century inventor in the star-studded adaptation of Longitude and in the past five years there have been many more roles in my kind of TV. From Sherlock to Strike, National Treasure (opposite Julie Walters) to the crazily bloodthirsty Gangs of London, McInnerny has been a sterling support.

We’ve only just finished seeing BBC One’s slow-burning often confusing eight-parter The Serpent, which featured Tim in a minor but important role as a world-weary Belgian consul in Bangkok. His Paul turned out to be a more three-dimensional character than most but I love it when the actor delivers the perfect turn as an imperious, oily Whitehall baddie. Nobody does it better!

Jools Holland - Too Cool for Cats

I was in the sixth form when Squeeze appeared on Top of the Pops early in 1979 miming along to ‘Cool For Cats’. We bunch of teenage boys loved lyrics such as “Funny how their misses always look the bleedin’ same” and, living in Essex, it wasn’t difficult to imitate Chris Difford’s South London deadpan delivery. But who was that weird bloke with hat and cigar on the toy keyboards? We didn’t know at the time but the comic character turned out to be a certain Jools Holland. 

From ‘Cool for Cats’ to ‘Up the Junction’ and ‘Another Nail in My Heart’, in studio or on video, the 21 year-old Jools would always add some joyful humour to proceedings. Yet I could never imagine him hosting a much-respected music show in the future. 

Suddenly he vanished from the Squeeze line-up, apparently leaving his old mates to go solo. But the next time I saw him was not fronting another quirky New Wave band but fronting an engaging documentary on tour with another group, broadcast as The Police: Around the World. It was a revelation for me. I already liked The Police, then one of the biggest bands on the planet, but it was Holland’s energy, enthusiasm and convention-defying interviewing style which made it such an entertaining programme. Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland played along, of course, and the latter has since become one of my favourite music documentary presenters in his own right. 

All this larking about with other pop stars served as a successful trial for is subsequent presenter gig, on Channel 4’s inaugural ‘yoof’ show The Tube from 1982. Its Friday early evening slot made regular viewing problematic for a London commuter like me but I made a special effort if there was one of my favourite bands due to perform. It was broadcast live so boasted the potential for chaos. Co-host Paula Yates just seemed to be stoned all the time but Jools just goofed about with a mere modicum of professionalism but his laid-back charisma] carried him through. There were some memorable live music performances but, having been groomed by Top of the Pops, the contrast in format was probably too great for me. 

In the Eighties, Jools was certainly one of the hippest guys on the box, a key figure on trendy new Channel 4. He also made a few cameo appearances on the Beeb’s The Young Ones and French and Saunders. However, by the Nineties, he was cultivating a more mature image. His Squeeze years were put behind him and he was now the maestro of boogie-woogie piano, with his hugely popular Rhythm and Blues Orchestra founded in 1994. 

This shift ran in parallel with the arrival of BBC2’s Friday night show Later… with Jools Holland. While the host was very much in charge, despite that deliberately disorderly manner, the programmes were very much focussed on music. Living on my own, Later… became a regular for me, the opening act determining whether or not I stayed up, knowing they would be back at the end. The middle-of-the-bill performers often strained my powers of loyalty to the limit; there’s only so much bluegrass slide guitar or Botswanan nose flute I could stomach but there was, and still is, no doubting the impressive eclectic mix of music genres booked. 

The opening ‘jam’ and introductions in each episode of Later… , encompassing the circular studio layout set the scene. It wasn’t live but was sufficiently unpredictable in tone to feel like it – in a good way. The live music would be punctuated by less-than-polished interviews with musicians or celebs in the audience and Holland would always have the opportunity to tickle the ivories. While I liked the notion of being introduced to new acts, it was the familiar faces which appealed the most. I have fond memories of golden oldies like Ian Dury  and also the still-relevant legends including those notoriously wary of interviews, including Morrissey in 2004. 

Jools Holland’s Hootenanny has also become a staple of BBC2’s New Year’s Eve schedule. I no longer watch every year, but I do remember venturing into a Television Centre studio observation gallery one late November afternoon and witnessing Jools rehearsing (yes, he rehearsed!) a setpiece for the Hootenanny. What? The show was recorded? Ah, the wonders of TV! 

These days he may be a more portly sixty-something but he can still illuminate an otherwise dull programme. Only a few months ago my attention was drawn to the screen during the otherwise tedious Celebrity Gogglebox when he shared a witty observant with viewing partner Vic Reeves. Ah, he’s still got it.

Matt Allwright's always on our side

Consumer programmes have been around longer than I can remember. From Braden and Rantzen issuing advice with a Saturday night entertainment spin to folksy egomaniac Martin Lewis promoting his financial website, I’ve probably dipped into most of them at some time or other. Presentation is key, and trust is pretty much top of the priority list for the host’s attributes. For me, John Stapleton was too earnest, Nicky Campbell too pompous, Hugh Scully too nice and Anne Robinson too snarlingly rude..

Watchdog has been the top brand, on our screens in various formats for four decades. It’s usually an easy watch without being ‘appointment to view’, a harmless blend of entertainment and information which might just be useful. However it can also set pulses racing and spirits rising when the series goes after criminals ripping us off in everyday situations and confronts the bastards. Cue applause and shouts of “Lock ‘em up!” from sofas nationwide. Some such scenarios warrant a programme or series to themselves and are the showcases for first-class investigative journalism. 

Donal McIntyre would risk his life going undercover, Dom LIttlewood’s Essex geezer schtick goes down well reporting on dodgy used car salesmen and purveyors of fake goods and then there’s the legendary Roger Cook. After years of presenting the excellent Checkpoint on Radio 4, the burly journalist switched to ITV for The Cook Report, doorstepping the villains in their own backyard and scaring them shitless. You didn’t mess with Roger! However, his was not a face which lends itself to the lighter side of current affairs. Matt Allwright’s, on the other hand, does, and he combines the best qualities of previous and contemporary hosts of TV consumer shows in one single package.

While he has branched out into other types of broadcasting, I most readily associate him with Rogue Traders, which has existed as a stand-alone programme and, most often, a feature within Watchdog and now The One Show.  I probably first saw him in the mid-Noughties, wearing biker’s leathers and riding pillion behind sidekick Dan Panteado These black-clad lone rangers would swoop around the country in pursuit of incompetent electricians, overcharging plumbers, illegal fly-tippers and builders hell-bent on stealing thousands from unsuspecting home-owners just like us. There but for the grace of God…. Sometimes Matt resorts to a disguise and on occasions he ends up in a Benny Hill-style comedy chase. I love those!

In the past decade the Beeb has found plenty of other work for him to do. There was more of a feelgood consumerism factor in Keeping Britain Safe 24/7, then in 2019 he was championing the return to use of derelict houses in Britain’s Housing Scandal, although I confess I find Homes Under the Hammer more entertaining. In 2016 Matt reached the final of a ‘law and order’ Pointless Celebrities show and ten years previously had even been considered to possess enough street cred to present an edition of Top of the Pops, albeit in its dying days. 

With Angie hooked on Emmerdale, I haven’t seen any of Allwright’s stints presenting BBC’s The One Show, scheduled opposite each other, and am unlikely to witness the Watchdog slot in the programme in the future. However, during last summer’s Covid first wave shielding period, it was a pleasure to be distracted by his typically laconic but professional presentation of BBC1’s live consumer morning show, Your Money and Your Life. His ex-soap star co-host Kym Marsh may have nabbed most of the headlines but their seemingly off-the-cuff banter was always engaging, and we were left in no doubt about where his football loyalties lay (Liverpool). 

There have been other ventures, too, which I haven’t watched, but it’s the live consumer programmes and interaction with real people which are his specialities. It’s a genre which, like cooking and property-hunting, has burgeoned in recent years and coronavirus times in particular. For all the impeccable journalistic credentials of Nikki Fox et al, it’s Matt Allwright’s laidback personality and dogged determination out in the field which stands out. He looks and sounds so ordinary, decked out in casual clothes and a quick wit. You’d probably have a lovely chat with him in the pub, at a bus stop or queuing for a supermarket till. Whatever his role on TV you just know Matt is going to be more than merely all right.

Dervla Kirwan - Versatility Personified

In 1994 I accompanied Mum and Dad on the train up to London’s Globe (now Gielgud) Theatre to see a top-notch cast in the Feydeau farce An Absolute Turkey. Griff Rhys Jones and Felicity Kendal topped the bill but amongst the supporting cast stood the diminutive frame and beguiling half-moon eyes of Dervla Kirwan. She was only 22 but was already familiar from TV and would continue to grace our screens right up to the present day.

She has somehow escaped the fate of so many Irish actors doomed for eternity to play IRA terrorists, fiddle-players or downtrodden farm girls struggling to survive the Potato Famine. Instead she has enjoyed a full range of roles across stage and screen. I didn’t see her performance in Troubles but almost certainly did catch a glimpse in a 1990 episode of Casualty. I say glimpse because, like so many young actors in the long-running drama, she spent much of it swathed in bandages, wires and tubes. I forget whether her character survived the emergency tracheotomy! 

She was still a teenager when she achieved a degree of notoriety in Melvyn Bragg’s A Time to Dance in ’92. She played the object of a much older Ronald Pickup’s lust in a series which had the Daily Mail green ink brigade choking in outrage over the sex scenes which they presumably just had to video and replay continuously just to remind themselves how disgusting it was. Dervla was enchanting but it was at times rather uncomfortable viewing. 

Then in 1993 she moved into the mainstream playing Nicholas Lyndhurst’s wartime Cockney sparrow girlfriend in the contrived but engaging Marks and Gran time-transfer sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart. She left after three series, which was a wise move because I felt it had run out of steam. I’m guessing she quit to become a leading character in the Beeb’s new Sunday night drama series Ballykissangel. For all its huge ratings, I was never seduced by all the blarney, beer and probably leaping leprechauns, let alone Kirwan’s burgeoning romance both on and off screen with Stephen Tompkinson. Again she departed after three successful series. 

On the other hand I did catch her in a Minette Walters two-part thriller The Dark Room, and it was a very different Dervla Kirwan on show. With close-shaven head following her character’s brain surgery, the mystery focussed on whether she had murdered her ex-fiance, best friend and former husband to boot. Did she? Can’t remember. But Dervla was utterly credible as a potential killer, a far cry from pulling pints of Guinness in a fictional County Wicklow village. 

In 2000 she joined a fine ensemble cast including Sarah Parish and Damien Lewis for Hearts and Bones. This was a reasonably diverting drama series about a bunch of twenty/thirty-something friends moving to London. Though it had a couple of runs, this was no This Life. 

The Noughties saw Kirwan in several series, plus a few guest appearances. In 2001 she was an extremely alluring mystery woman in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and four years later she was more than merely flirtatious as Casanova’s mother, abandoning the future David Tennant for a career of sex and singing. From eighteenth century Venice to Victorian London, Dervla was back on period costume in a 2008 Doctor Who Christmas Day story. No sex, of course, but her Miss Hartigan was far too close to the Cybermen than Mr Tennant would tolerate. 

Since then, Dervla Kirwan has featured in numerous thrillers, not all of which I have seen. ITV’s Injustice was stripped across a whole week, demanding a commitment I couldn’t fulfil at the time, and only last year The Stranger proved a Netflix lockdown serial too far. However, I know she was very good in 2010’s The Silence, protecting a deaf girl who has witnessed a crime while trying to keep her own family going, and with Christopher Eccleston and Andrew Scott in 2012’s claustrophobic slice of noir, Blackout. Her role in the 2018 Hong Kong-set Strangers was short on screen time, given that she was apparently killed in a car crash right at the start, but crucial to the story. Her fair-haired character in a 2019 Silent Witness two-parter was also on a hiding to nothing: a pathologist brought in to challenge findings made by the saintly Nikki. 

However one of my favourite Dervla Kirwan parts came in another crime-related series, 55 Degrees North. She played a no-nonsense but grounded CPS lawyer crossing swords and emotions with Don Gilet’s London cop exiled to Newcastle night shifts. I enjoyed the series but we’ll never know if they got it together because it was axed after only two runs. At least that enabled the viewing public to see the Dubliner in a broader range of roles to keep us entertained.

Bob Monkhouse - Game Show host with the Golden Touch

Thirty years ago any thought of Bob Monkhouse being a TV Treasure would have been anathema to me, absolutely laughable. He’d have been a more appropriate candidate for room 101, followed by burial in a deep pit and capped with concrete. He was a notable Tory party and Thatcher supporter, too. But even a veteran game show host is entitled to re-evaluation and by the time he died in 2003 I realised there had been more to him than a fake tan and well-rehearsed salute. It took quite a while. 

Like most of his generation of entertainers, Monkhouse cut his teeth in radio both as performer and gag-writer. Like Bruce Forsyth he was a skilled and lively comic host of TV variety shows in the Fifties and Sixties and I remember in 1973 watching  Carry On Sergeant and being surprised to see the owner of that distinctive ‘beauty spot’ co-starring in the very first ‘Carry On’ film alongside the likes of Charles Hawtrey, Terry Scott and Kenneths Connor and Williams. 

By that time, Bob was very familiar to me. We weren’t big on game shows in our household but the exception was ITV’s The Golden Shot.  Almost from as long as I can remember it formed part of our regular Sunday afternoon viewing, following The Big Match football and the escapist adventure slot featuring the likes of The Persuaders or Department S. I believe it was broadcast live – it certainly looked like it! – but Monkhouse was always the unflappably professional and genial host amidst the guests, ‘Bernie the Bolt’ and the mini-skirted assistant, Anne Aston. The best shots were rewarded and luckily no humans were harmed during the making of this programme. 

By the mid-Seventies, Sunday afternoons were more the preserve of pesky English essays and French vocab learning but I did occasionally watch Bob’s next venture, Celebrity Squares although the teenage Mike found it all tediously self-congratulatory. I’ve never been into Family Fortunes, another one of Bob’s, but when the Beeb lured him away from his old commercial stomping ground, we did make a weekly date with his bingo-based show Bob’s Full House. The presenter wasn’t the main attraction. Indeed I would happily have strapped him to the set of The Golden Shot and let the crossbow-firers do their worst. He was also the target of many Eighties comedians and young impressionists like Rory Bremner, quick to lampoon the smarmy smile and dubious sincerity of Monkhouse and his ilk. 

But things were changing. I paid little attention to his BBC revival of Opportunity Knocks but did tune in to a few of his chat shows with fellow comics, old and new, on The Bob Monkhouse Show. Then in the Nineties, old-school variety entertainers became cool again. It was now OK to laugh with, not at, comedians like Benny Hill and Frankie Howerd (who died within a day of each other in ’92) and even Ben Elton handed Ronnie Corbett a regular slot on his eponymous show. 

Bob was suddenly everywhere on the TV. In 1993 he appeared on the late-night chat show trying to get a word in edgeways against the host of Danny Baker After All which Dad and I quite enjoyed, then was the very first guest on Room 101 and granted An Audience With Bob Monkhouse by ITV. With his quick wit and ear for a one-liner, he was also a perfect team captain and host for BBC2’s new comedy panel show Gag Tag which was usually a good source of laughs for me. The BBC also milked the comedian’s well-deserved reputation for ad-libs in 1995’s Saturday night series Bob Monkhouse on the Spot, in which audience members supposedly provided subject matter from which the star could dish up the humour. 

There were guest appearances on existing shows, too. Like Brucie, Bob won new fans thanks to a few stints on Have I Got News For You?  His apparent right-wing tendencies might have jarred with the likes of Ian Hislop and Ken Livingstone but you wouldn’t have known, old pro that he was. Monkhouse couldn’t completely escape his gameshow past, either. His primetime CV was further expanded by presenting National Lottery Live. As stated earlier, I’ve never been a fan of his ‘shiny floor’ persona but the ten-minute slots were easier to digest, despite the contrived catchphrase, “I may be a sinner but make me a winner”. 

Bob was finding a new lease of broadcasting life into his seventies when diagnosed with prostate cancer. To his credit, he spoke widely about the condition which two years later claimed his life. Indeed he apparently spoke about it four years after his death. Like many, I marvelled at what I thought was Monkhouse’s pre-recorded prostate cancer charity advert in 2007. In fact, it was only the product of technical wizardry and a ‘soundalike’ actor but it actually served as a reminder of what an entertaining trooper Bob Monkhouse had been.

Bill Paterson - Scientist or Psycho, but always Scottish

For four decades, Bill Paterson has been one of the most comforting faces and voices on the box. Whether playing kindly gents or psychopaths, doing little cameos or narrating documentaries, the veteran Glaswegian is always a welcome visitor to the corner of our living room or my laptop screen. For many years he plied his trade in theatres across Europe before branching out into television and cinema. Even his films (Richard III, Comfort and Joy, etc) were the kind I’d happily watch. 

Paterson’s distinctive high sloping forehead and Concorde nose were visible on BBC series Telford’s Change and Smiley’s People without drawing my attention but it was in the second series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet that he made a greater impact. Away from the German setting, there was something missing but Bill’s character Ally Fraser brought a different dimension. He was a corrupt businessman to whom Denis was indebted, leading to the tradesman crew decamping to Marbella to repair his villa and, in theory, repay the debt. He was a no-nonsense Scot, duplicitous villain and oily host, making a formidable employer and adversary. 

Also in 1986 he appeared as Michael Gambon’s doctor in Dennis Potter’s weird but creepy The Singing Detective, which I saw only because it was Dad’s favourite programme, but I infinitely preferred the 1989 Channel 4 thriller Traffik. This time Bill Paterson took the starring role as a politician challenging the international heroin trade and father of an addicted daughter. It was hard-hitting stuff, focussing not just on the smuggling bad guys but also the poor Middle Eastern poppy growers sucked into the industry. It deservedly won a host of awards and was eventually adapted for cinema by Steven Soderbergh (set in Mexico) and US mini-series, but there wasn’t really a place for the original Scottish lead. 

In the Nineties, Bill portrayed the estranged father of Joe McFadden’s principal character in BBC2’s The Crow Road. It was a multi-layered drama series, like the Banks book and, while much of the spotlight fell on the young star, the real highlight must surely have been Peter Capaldi’s crown of flamboyant curls! 

Advance several years and I must have seen Bill Paterson in Little Dorrit and a few forgotten series Swallow (pharmaceutical conspiracy) and Trust (legal drama) but he then seemed to specialise as academics. In Sea of Souls, his Dr Monoghan ran a university unit investigating paranormal activities and apparent psychics. It ran for four series and, whilst running out of steam towards the end and requiring a certain degree of belief suspension, made for enjoyable and absorbing viewing. Thankfully it didn’t try to emulate The X-Files; the Glasgow locations and Paterson’s skilled acting made it feel more real. 

In 2010, he was back in professorial mode in another sci-fi series Doctor Who. He appeared in a couple of historical stories featuring Matt Smith’s Time Lord but, having been created as an undercover android to scupper Churchill’s war effort by those pesky Daleks, for all his good intentions he was destined to meet a sticky end. Bill was another credible ‘prof’ in an eccentric Dirk Gently mystery, which I felt merited more than a slot on BBC4. 

It was quite light fare but in the past few years the seventy-something Bill Paterson has provided some delightful performances in a few dark comedies. He was amongst the ensemble cast, with a pair of Rory Kinnears, in an Inside No.9 farce, but he also portrayed Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s ageing dad in Fleabag. In two superb series he was a beacon of sincerity and sanity amidst the bunch of oddballs. Whilst experiencing an uneasy relationship with his wilful daughter, and allowing himself to become engaged to the young control freak (Olivia Colman), he almost had me in tears during my lockdown viewing talking to ‘Fleabag’ after an awkward family meal out. 

Bill was also involved in some emotional family scenes in the second series of Shetland, once again playing the main character’s father. I suspect that had he been thirty years younger, Paterson would have been a shoo-in for the lead role bagged by Douglas Henshall, or at least his brother-in-law, played by Mark Bonnar who I reckon has assumed Paterson’s mantle of top Scottish TV actor. In 2019 they were reunited in BBC Scotland’s priceless black comedy thriller Guilt. The elder statesman was back in Ally Fraser territory as a ruthless Glasgow gangster, and very chilling he was, too. Goodie or baddie, on screen or narrating documentaries, even at 75 Bill Paterson remains one of the best in the business.