The Dashing Des Lynam

During most of the Eighties and Nineties Des Lynam seemed to be absolutely everywhere. In the final days before Sky hoovered up all the live broadcasting rights, he was the face and voice of most of the Beeb’s sport coverage. Such exposure could have been mass overkill but not in Lynam’s case. Such a consummate professional with a twinkle in his eye and an ear for the perfectly judged wry phrase, we couldn’t get enough of him. 

He hadn’t been an overnight sensation. I hadn’t realised at the time but the Irish-born, Brighton-raised journalist had cut his teeth in local radio and even Radio 4’s esteemed news strand Today in the Seventies. His TV career began quietly on the sport slot within the early evening Nationwide programme but really took off in 1979. Lynam’s stint on Radio 2’s live afternoon sports show served him well for his celebrated spell fronting BBC1’s TV equivalent, Grandstand. 

I was brought up on David Coleman and Frank Bough, linking live reports and films, device in one ear and pen in hand for four or five hours each week but Des brought an extra dimension to the role. Even ITV’s Dickie Davies couldn’t compete with Lynam’s singular moustache and line in leisure jacket and tie. Even with twenty-first century technology, few modern broadcasters can handle such a range of sports as Des did in Final Score, the ol’ vidiprinter beeping away merrily and the score draw count reminding us of a day when the Pools performed the job of today’s fantasy football. 

Des seemed even more at ease when Sunday Grandstand launched in 1981. Whether in Coleman-esque golf sweater or full lounge lizard garb reminiscent of some millionaire gangster sipping cocktails on his Monte Carlo yacht, he was the ideal man to link cricket, show jumping and cross-country on a summer Sunday afternoon while I was home from university. 

He was eventually granted weekend afternoons off but, between 1991 and 1997, he shifted to midweek to become the final incumbent of the Sportsnight desk chair although I will always associate that show’s signature tune with either David Coleman or Harry Carpenter. Then there were the global events. Of course it was Des chosen to front the Beeb’s Olympic Games coverage and the major football tournaments such as the World Cup (note in this clip he didn’t concur with Sir Bobby’s suggestion to substitute Gary Lineker who went on to strike the winning penalties!) and, notably, the 1996 Euros, where he carefully avoided ITV’s jarringly jingoistic pro-England stance. 

By this time Lynam was revelling in his reputation as a housewives’ favourite, an image happily exploited by impressionists like Rory Bremner. The Beeb was happy to exploit it too, believing the media hype about him attracting female viewers. The ‘tache had long since caught up with the prematurely greying barnet but, whatever the programme, once the opening titles had faded it was always reassuring to see Desmond Lynam’s cheery face welcoming us. I can’t speak for the legions of ladies said to be drooling over Des; for me it was all about the sport…. 

And he seemed to be the face for all kind of sports. He dispensed with the then traditional Aintree trilby for the annual Grand National outside broadcast and he was an assured anchorman on anything from Wimbledon highlights to athletics. On the radio, boxing had been his first love. Yet until the Nineties, Harry Carpenter had that gig sewn up on BBC Television. Then came the wholesale rights purchase by Sky and bouts were largely lost to terrestrial TV and viewers like me. However, I do recall watching back in 1987 Lynam’s interview on Grandstand with the new heavyweight sensation Mike Tyson. It was nicely judged and showed us a different side of the uncaged ‘beast’ who bludgeoned every opponent he faced in the ring. Tyson was soft-spoken shy and humble, and Des deftly drew him out. 

Then there’s the national game. Gary Lineker has been the face of Match of the Day for so long now, it’s hard to recall that he was once the apprentice to the master, Desmond Lynam. Bob Wilson could fall back on his career as Arsenal goalie and Adrian Chiles his longsuffering West Brom fan, but Lynam’s skill was in leading the team of pundits like Jimmy Hill, Alan Hansen or Trevor Brooking on live TV, be it on the big occasions or the weekly Premier League highlights show, MOTD. He possessed a light touch and even demonstrated some neat comedy acting on Comic Relief but also an expert handler of the serious stuff, as on the day of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. 

However, when the Beeb lost the rights to football highlights, Des jumped ship to ITV. He was neither the first nor the last to follow the money to the commercial world but once he had to utter the dreaded phrase “See you after the break” I knew he would never be the same. It seemed like the end of an era and this clip seems other-worldly: Wycombe Wanderers in an FA Cup semi-final?! The passing of the baton was laid stark when Gary spoke to Des in a clearly rehearsed Sports Review of the Year exchange in 2003. The former host had gone to ITV and there he was, sitting alongside the long-retired Frank Bough and Peter Dimmock. I’m sure the metaphor wasn’t lost on him. 

To be honest I’m not sure Des seems comfortable guesting on someone else’s show. When he appeared on Fantasy Football League in ’96 I’d never seen him so lost for words. Perhaps it’s hardly surprising when Frank Skinner and David Baddiel were engaged in sexist banter with Dani Behr, but Des clearly wished he was somewhere else! 

Also in the Nineties, I’d often enjoy comedy sports quiz They Think It’s All Over on TV but it started out on BBC Radio 5 (before its Five Live re-brand), and guess who presented it? I actually attended one recording in 1993 and mused at the time whether it would succeed on TV. As it happened, panel game kings Talkback snapped it up but, despite doing a pilot, he decided against continuing, to the subsequent benefit of comedian Nick Hancock’s bank balance. 

Of course, Lynam’s skills and personality were too good for pigeonholing under ‘Sport’. At the height of his fame, he co-presented How Do They Do That?, a features series answering viewer questions by means of short filmed reports, and for a few years even fronted the Beeb’s Holiday strand, a role I’d completely forgotten. In more recent times, he’s hosted a few editions of Have I Got News For You? and also replaced the late Richard Whitely on Countdown, but I never watched that. Nonetheless I’ve always felt Des was best suited to the cut-and-thrust of live, unscripted broadcasting, saying all you needed to know with a few ‘bon mots’, a well-timed pause mid-sentence, half-wink and a twitch of that trademark ‘tache.

Frank Skinner - No Fantasy but the Real Deal

This collection of personal small screen favourites has already included a few versatile comedians who before my very eyes have progressed from callow newcomer to seasoned broadcaster. When Frank Skinner first appeared on TV he was already fully-formed. He’d transitioned from English graduate and unemployed alcoholic to award-winning stand-up comic. In fact he won the 1991 prestigious Perrier prize at the Edinburgh Fringe from under the noses of both Jack Dee and Eddie Izzard, no less. 

Brilliant writer-performers have dominated the box in the past four decades, from Ben Elton to Lee Mack, Nick Hancock to David Mitchell, but West Bromwich Albion’s most celebrated supporter just about squeezes past them. The former Chris Collins was in a few Channel 4 shows which passed me by but I’m pretty sure I’d heard his name by the time BBC2 first showed Fantasy Football League at the start of 1994. 

Dad and I were already familiar with the premise of fantasy football from newspapers so this new Friday night show, itself inspired by a BBC Radio Five series, grabbed us from the off. Hosted by real-life flat-sharers Skinner and David Baddiel, the cosy studio set purported to be their ‘living room’, albeit one filled by football fans, to which celebrity guests would be invited through the front door. It was all fortuitous timing. Lad culture was on the rise, Britpop was already gaining ground, the Premier League had recently led elite football kicking and screaming into a new shiny era of Satellite TV while stand-up comedy had completed its evolution from smoke-filled clubs to mainstream arenas. The Beeb was keen to join the party. 

OK, so it may not actually have been Frank and David’s actual settee but they both seemed so relaxed, introducing topical, funny football clips, sipping bottled beer and chatting to their guests. Frank, in particular, seemed so wonderfully at ease with his audience, be it in the studio or through the camera lens. In its three-year lifespan, the Fantasy Football content diminished while the comedy, often haphazard and spontaneous, became more prevalent. There were ongoing piss-takes, notably of an aggrieved Nottingham Forest striker Jason “Pineapple Head” Lee but also examples of genuine humorous cult hero worship. 

Perhaps my favourite regular feature was Phoenix from the Flames. These were filmed reports recreating famous footballing incidents with Frank and David larking about with the original participant. There were classic goals (e.g. Carlos Alberto, Geoff Hurst, George Best and of course Skinner’s WBA idol Jeff Astle), pitch invasions, referees and managers, not all of them accomplished in the art of speaking scripted lines. Malcolm Macdonald was one of the better ones. 

Like Oasis, Blur and Terry Venables’ England team, the summer of 1996 was arguably the peak of Baddiel and Skinner’s laddish fame (Frank was almost 40 but didn’t look it!). With Fantasy Football League part of that culture, and Euro 96 taking place on our shores, they teamed up with the Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie to write the greatest and enduring football song of all time, Three Lions. Frank Skinner’s face when the Wembley crowd was singing the chorus was a picture. 

The ‘Fantasy’ brand was revived periodically for subsequent major football championships, starting with the 1998 World Cup Fantasy Football League. The ‘Phoenix’ films were retained, and guests had an international flavour.  Holland’s Sylvia Kristel was surprisingly good but Denmark’s Brigitte Nielsen was an embarrassment, perhaps related to over-indulgence in the ‘green room’! The shows were an amusing addition to ITV’s live tournament coverage but the original charm was fading. 

Frank Skinner’s star was still rising. He had an easy-going, quick wit, natural intelligence and that breezy Black Country banter and to capitalise on his personality in ’97, the Beeb awarded him his own chat show. There were a few car crash exchanges early on but if Frank liked his guest there were some gems. Unfortunately Frank got a bit greedy with his pay demands and the deeper pockets of ITV were ready to pounce. The chat show jumped ship and in the new millennium Skinner was reunited with his old sofa buddy for Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned. The first few series were live, with predictably chaotic results but there was some amusing interaction with audience members and the closing song was a nice idea: Frank’s karaoke to David’s piano (who knew?!) accompaniment leading into the credits. 

There is, of course, more to Frank than a winning turn of comic phrase, impudent smile and extravagantly arched eyebrows. Soon after Fantasy began, Frank starred in a new BBC comedy panel show, Gagtag, chaired by Jonathan Ross. I forget the format but it was basically a lot of quickfire jokes featuring comedians of varying vintage, ranging from Bob Monkhouse and Eddie Large to Phill Jupitus and, another personal fave, Tony Hawks. It wasn’t a classic but there were usually plenty of laughs, many provided by Mr Skinner. There were inevitable performances on Have I Got News For You? and QI, the latter featuring his playing a banjolele. As a big George Formby fan, Frank has often been shown whipping out his ‘uke’ to give viewers a faithful rendition of old songs, much like Billy Connolly and his banjo, only funnier. 

In the mid-Noughties, I remember watching Frank on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, joking with the host and promoting his new BBC sitcom Shane. I gave the first series a go, and my contemporary diary entry said it had “some amusing bits but he’s no actor”, and I don’t think that has changed. 

Instead he has built upon his strengths. I had my doubts about his replacing Paul Merton as host of Room 101 but he brought his own magic to the role. Those eyebrows certainly had some exercise when Danny Baker declared his choice for banishment in 2012. Then there’s the stand-up. It’s more than two decades since I saw him shamble onto the stage of the Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff to deliver a highly entertaining set but, Covid permitting, he‘s back on tour in 2021. I hope he’s not lost entirely to the medium of television. Angie and I are as obsessed with the Fantasy Premier League game as ever but it’s probably not a smart career move for Frank to revisit the Nineties, however easy it would be to ridicule the finishing of Benteke, the muscles of Adama Traore or the vagaries of VAR.  He’s only 63 and there should be plenty more in the tank.

Caroline Catz - Reassuringly normal

To most people, Caroline Catz is probably most recognisable as the love interest of Martin Clunes in Doc Martin. They can be forgiven: it has been seventeen years since it was first broadcast, a third of her life, and it has become a staple of the ITV non-soap/Simon Cowell schedules. However, she’s been on our screens a lot longer than that and indeed is more than a ‘mere’ actor. 

I did watch much of the first series of Doc Martin in 2004, no doubt attracted by the comic potential of Clunes and the gorgeous Cornish setting. The lead had the grumpy maverick GP down to an art form, a sort-of Jack Dee-meets-Mr Bean, with eccentric locals queuing up a la All Creatures Great and Small in the ‘70s. What I hadn’t expected in the first episode was Caroline Catz in the role of Obvious Future Girlfriend. 

It wasn’t much of a role, really. She seemed well cast as a young, attractive passionate primary schoolteacher in a fictional Cornish village, which reminded me of the first time I saw her on telly a decade earlier. In 1993 I’d enjoyed a few TV North-centred comedy-dramas written by a young bloke called Tim Firth. The following January BBC1 heralded a brand new series from the same writer called All Quiet On the Preston Front so naturally I gave it a go. 

It wasn’t a massive ratings winner but I remember raving about it to anyone in earshot. The basic premise was a motley bunch of twenty-somethings in a Lancashire town who come together in the local Territorial Army brigade. Colin Buchanan and, from the second series (abbreviated to Preston Front), Alastair McGowan were notable new faces but my favourite was undoubtedly the unknown Caroline Catz as trainee teacher Dawn. Whether in army fatigues or civvies, her intelligent, slightly naïve and distinctly normal character won a lot of people over and pretty soon she was in demand for a host of ITV crime series. 

Her Preston Front TA rank had been Private and in The Bill she was again on the lowest rung, only this time in the Met Police. In ’99, she was another PC but in Vice Squad. As Cheryl Hutchins, Caroline sported a neat bob for her frequent forays undercover into the seedy side of London for The Vice. I think I missed the first series but was certainly impressed by the second. It had a cracking cast, led by Ken Stott and supported by David Harewood and Marc Warren who, in retrospect, looked to be barely out of short trousers, but Ms Catz more than held her own in such exalted company. 

A few years later she had been promoted to Detective Inspector for Murder in Suburbia. With Lisa Faulkner as co-star, this should have been high on my list of shows to watch but in reality I saw only a couple. It seemed to fall between two stools: not funny enough for comedy-drama and too flimsy for an engaging crime series. DCI Banks was far superior fare. Based on Peter Robinson’s excellent books and Stephen Tompkinson as the eponymous detective, the Yorkshire-set show was in my opinion of consistently high quality. 

Caroline’s character, DI Helen Morton, wasn’t introduced until the second series, when the other main female actor was on maternity leave, but she remained until the axe fell in 2016. Catz’s trademark long brown hair was present and correct but she had a more severe look wearing at times some scarily dark lipstick. She probably shared a few off-set reminiscences with her screen boss as they had both starred in All Quiet on the Preston Front two decades earlier. 

It hasn’t all been chasing villains for her, though. There’ve been the odd sitcom, stage production and documentary direction, while narrator work on series such as Cutting Edge and Panorama also pays the bills, especially in these pandemic days when theatres are dark and social distancing slows the filming process. In 2009, she played a stuck-up media personality guest in the tongue-in-cheek Hotel Babylon but when it comes to casting a lively Mancunian female teacher with a wide smile, there is only one candidate.

Jimmy Nail - Howay the lad!

Any self-respecting thesaurus, encyclopaedia or online search engine would surely append any reference to “mean, moody Geordie” with “see Jimmy Nail”. Apparently he found fame as an actor almost by accident given his lack of professional training. However, presence and personality, plus a colourful personal backstory, seemed to provide adequate compensation when it came to his early roles. 

As documented in this 1995 South Bank Show interview with a blow-dried Melvyn Bragg, he overcame an adolescent preoccupation with arson, alcohol and general rebellion to channel it into a successful career in the entertainment industry. Even his stage name Nail was the product of a nickname after he trod on one whilst working in a glass factory. 

According to IMDB the then 29 year-old Jimmy’s first TV appearance was in the thought-provoking 1983 Cold War drama Spy Ship which I quite enjoyed. I’ve no idea what kind of character he played, but I can hazard a fairly confident guess! A mere two days later came his arrival in a new ITV comedy-drama: a television legend was born. 

With the established comedy pedigree of writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Auf Wiedersehen Pet demanded our attention. However, hour-long episodes without a laughter track, shot on video, featuring a largely unknown ensemble cast meant instant success wasn’t guaranteed. I was also surprised such a series was on ITV. It’s entirely plausible that an early-Eighties BBC would have rejected the premise of a bunch of tradesman swapping Thatcherite unemployment for some hard graft and Deutschmarks as too working–class. However, ITV quickly had a hit. 

‘Pet’ ran for only two series initially but it was revived by the Beeb in the new millennium for three more, by which time most of the cast had carved out considerable careers. For example, Kevin Whately has become well-known for portraying decent, thoughtful types, Chris Fairbank for playing the opposite, Timothy Spall for top-notch British films and Tim Healy is a versatile comedy character actor par excellence. Yet for all their thespian talent it was the authenticity of Jimmy Nail which made his Oz the heart of the show. 

Strong as the Tyne Bridge, craggy as an outcrop of Northumbrian dolerite and just as thick, Oz was pure unreconstructed Northern male and we loved him for it. He was relentlessly politically incorrect, not averse to riling the Dusseldorf locals without even realising it. Spall’s innocent Brummie Barry and Gary Holton’s womanising chancer Wayne had their moments, but most of the laugh-out-loud scenes and lines tended to involve Nail’s Oz. 

When after a sixteen-year gap, AWP locations were switched to Arizona and Cuba I had doubts about whether the old magic would still be there. However, the writers and cast succeeded in giving the characters more maturity whilst retaining the prime ingredients of what made them so brilliant in the first place. Oz was still a proud Geordie but even he sometimes had a brain cell advantage over Moxey, as illustrated by this hilarious conversation, with its perfectly set up punchline.                                                                         

Back in the Eighties, when Jimmy Nail wasn’t involved in constructing buildings he was knocking them down. In ’85 he had a cameo, typecast as a truculent demolition worker in the Tom Sharpe farce Blott on the Landscape. 

However, just when I thought I’d sussed out Jimmy Nail’s limitations he suddenly wound up on Top of the Pops! Crooning Love Don’t Live Here Any More all the way to number three in the charts, I was seeing another facet to Jimmy Nail and in 1991 he returned to our screens in altogether new guise. 

With long, straggly hair complementing that ‘Roman nose’ and a leaner, meaner, chiselled look, Nail was now Spender. Yes, he was just another in a long line of maverick cops but the series featured a raft of North East character actors such as Sammy Johnson and Berwick Kaler and, whilst often quite dark in tone was much more entertaining than Get Carter! It ran for three popular series and has been unfairly neglected in the TV detective nostalgia rankings. I thought it was great. 

If Spender was something of a Jimmy Nail vanity project, then Crocodile Shoes took it to another level. Dennis Waterman’s jokey reputation as star, theme writer and singer is all well and good but when the man from Newcastle created, produced, co-wrote and starred in the series AND sung the ‘feem tune’ it felt like Nail could do no wrong. His serious musical intentions had already been laid out in the Spender era when he topped the charts with Ain’t No Doubt  but the series about a factory worker Jed trying to make it as a country music singer-songwriter was obviously designed to run parallel with Jimmy Nail’s own ambitions. 

Crocodile Shoes did have an element of crime fiction (did he kill his agent?) but it was more a kind of rags-to-riches-and-back-again story with a huge helping of Nashville whining about whiskey, wimmin ‘n’ woe. As you may have gathered, I’m no fan of the genre but that Nail charisma and authentic Tyneside patter carried me through both series. Mind you, I wasn’t one of the million people who bought the album….. 

Apart from those ‘Pet’ revivals and a single run of the Beeb’s Parents of the Band (which neither I nor the vast majority of the population watched) that has been it for Jimmy Nail the TV star. For all his high-profile collaborators and associations with fellow Tynesiders Sting and Mark Knopfler he never quite hit the heights as a singer-songwriter and his Broadway career performing in Sting’s musical The Last Ship was embarrassingly short-lived. 

Nevertheless, despite his long-time absence, Jimmy Nail remains for me a British small-screen legend. The loping detective Spender was an engaging character but his galumphing big-hearted brickie Oz will always have a place in my heart. Poles apart from my own sentiments and politics, just reading the name makes me smile recalling those superb scenes in Auf Wiedersehen Pet which I could happily watch all day, every day.

Dennis Waterman - actor, singer and feem tune writer

Since Little Britain captured what we were all thinking in the Noughties and caricatured him as a boy demanding of his agent that he always “write the feem tune, sing the feem tune”, dear old Dennis Waterman’s previous reputation as loveable London tough guy has been almost forgotten. On one hand this is a shame, but on t’other it reminds us that there was always much more to him than roles beating up ‘lags’ and hounding ‘slags’.

I’m not sure whether Waterman could dominate a series on his own; even when ostensibly the star he was often upstaged. But that’s not to denigrate him. He’s been a brilliant supporting character actor, be it in drama, comedy or as himself, an authentic Sarf Londoner. 

In the 1960s he was a child actor on TV, stage and film and before he hit the big time as Sergeant Carter in 1975 I must have seen him in small parts on big series. In 1972 I was allowed to stay up late to watch the BBC’s Colditz. It was quite stagey but as a WW2 prison drama that just ratcheted up the tension, it was absorbing. In one episode a 24 year-old Dennis appeared complete with dodgy German accent and oily hair-do as an SS officer in a scene with Robert Wagner. A few years later he was in more familiar garb and voice as a Cockney geezer truck driver nicking a top-secret weapon in ITV’s Special Branch, but this was all preparation for his stint on the other side of the fence in London’s Flying Squad. 

To teenage schoolboys like me The Sweeney was essential viewing and my friends soon had me watching. It wasn’t all punch-ups and “Get yer trousers on, you’re nicked”; it was real drama with proper acting and everything. Even Dad enjoyed it! However, the wasteground shootouts and boozer battles were always welcome. There were lighter moments, too. Even Morecambe and Wise made an appearance. 

For all Waterman’s youth it was usually John Thaw’s rugged Regan who had the birds after him and I never found Dennis convincing as a muscular macho type. What did I know? In real life he’d been in the ring himself and boxing was in the blood. This was used in the back story (and opening titles) of his next TV character Terry McCann in Minder. If The Sweeney and its immediate replacement The Professionals had been a hot topic for school conversation, Minder was a popular subject amongst undergraduates at Exeter. It wasn’t the same, though. 

Minder may have featured Dennis Waterman in numerous chases, bouts of fisticuffs and uneasy relationships with ‘the local plod’ but it was much lighter fare. Thames TV teamed him with George Cole, then best known for playing spiv Flash ‘Arry in the ‘50s St Trinians films, and it was the older statesman’s Arthur Daley who began to steal the scenes and hog the funniest lines. ‘Terence’ was dodgy dealer Arfur’s bodyguard and general gopher and, while he obviously wanted more from life, was ultimately content with his meagre pay despite knowing his boss took advantage of his good nature and loyalty. 

At least in this series, there was no John Thaw to distract the ladies. In an early episode of Minder he was smitten by the sultry Rula Lenska, for whom Waterman would eventually leave his second wife, and Terry always had an eye for a pretty face, the posher the totty the better. However, the highlights of the programme tended to be the amusing exchanges between Terry and Arthur. 

The series also started the whole business of writing and singing the signature tune. Although he had recorded an album in the Seventies, Dennis soared to three in the charts in 1980 with the jaunty “I Could Be So Good For You”. He seemed to promote it on every TV show going but – credit where credit’s due – he actually sang live on one Top of the Pops. A million times better than the official vomit-inducing video which was cornier than the plains of Nebraska. 

By now the dye was cast. He was on vocal duties again for ITV’s series with Jan Francis, Stay Lucky and around the same time over the credits of Bob Larbey’s amiable sitcom with Sam Kelly and Joan Sims, On The Up. The latter featured Dennis as a Clapham boy (so far, so true to life) who became a self-made millionaire. Again, while he was the undoubted lead, it was Joan’s “Just the one” which was the programme’s enduring catchphrase. 

For the Beeb’s New Tricks, in which he appeared as Gerry for twelve years, Waterman ceded theme writing duties to the more experienced Mike Moran but it was the same old Dennis chirping away, albeit in his sixties. He seemed to be playing a geriatric version of Carter alongside James Bolam, Alun Armstrong and real-life old flame Amanda Redman, and the mix of careworn banter and occasionally serious crime-solving storylines proved a winning format. I lost interest after several series but Mum was a huge fan to the end. 

Waterman’s natural accent and personal background have often been to the fore, and his love of football has also influenced his choice of TV work. In the Nineties, he fronted the Beeb’s nostalgia series Match of the Seventies, while a decade earlier he largely funded and starred in a Tyne Tees film A Captain’s Tale, timed to coincide with the 1982 World Cup, about a Northumberland town club skippered by Dennis with a gallant attempt at a generic North-East accent. And, amidst my degree finals, a very enjoyable two hours it was, too. 

Not a dodgy deal in sight, and in ’86 his was an unexpected casting in the BBC1 adaptation of Fay Weldon’s Life and Loves of a She-Devil. His role of a posh wealthy bloke who leaves his wife for Patricia Hodge, motivating said ex to wreak an elaborate revenge, was hardly a crowd-pleaser; the women had the meatiest parts and Waterman’s was completely against type. It all made for gripping if, for me at least, uneasy viewing.

But he has forged a long and fruitful career as a crafty, resourceful Londoner handy with his fists and a sharp one-liner. He knows how to handle comedy. With The Sweeney at its peak in 1976 he and John Thaw guested in the prestigious Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, a few weeks after another light-hearted skit with Basil Brush! 

He doesn’t always take himself seriously either, which is just as well given David Walliams’ regular portrayal of Dennis as a high-voiced junior schoolboy in Little Britain back in the Noughties. He would enter his agent’s office to learn of his role offers, forever asking whether he’ll be “writing the feem tune, singing the feem tune”. I can’t find it on YouTube but I recall the sketch broadcast from the 2006 live tour in which the real Waterman interrupts Walliams and Matt Lucas in mid-caricature. It was hilarious. Nobody, not least even the comedians themselves, really understands why the ex-Minder is played as a falsetto-voiced boy but I have to confess the persistent theme song topic is thoroughly deserving of parody. 

John Thaw may have garnered more awards in starring roles but in my opinion it’s his loyal sergeant Dennis Waterman who has been the more engaging and enduring TV personality.

Julie Graham - a star from Lapland to Shetland

Since her early days in Strike It Rich and as student Nurse McGrellis in Casualty, Julie Graham has become a regular on our screens. Although I never watched her big roles in William & Mary, The Bletchley Circle, Bonekickers, Survivors and Benidorm, she has featured often enough in my personal TV diet to claim Treasure status. Perhaps I may have been swayed by an innocent crush I had on her in the Nineties but the actor’s appeal goes way beyond that. 

Whilst I would have seen her appearance in Spender a few years previously it probably all started in 1994 when, along with fellow young gun Tom Hollander, she played a Scottish investigative journalist at Michael Elphick’s Darlington news agency in Harry. It ran for a few engaging seasons, and around the same time Julie also had a part in Bugs, a sci-fi crime caper series. In the episode she portrayed an apparent model who steals a supercar during the filming of a commercial. Coincidentally she simultaneously did for real a number of TV adverts for the Peugeot 106! 

Around the turn of the millennium there were further roles in dramas which failed to grab me. She was in Glasgow-set medical drama Life Support, At Home With the Braithwaites and starred as a sex therapist in ITV’s Between the Sheets. In Christmas 2011 she was a blousy mum and wife of the unrelated Stephen Graham (!) in comedy-drama Lapland (which I did watch) and must have had some fun playing a human survivor facing the Cybermen in Doctor Who earlier this year. 

Of course I like a bit of a crime thriller so enjoyed watching Julie Graham in the Scottish mystery One of Us in 2016 and as the Procurator Fiscal often drafted to Lerwick in the Beeb’s superior cop series Shetland.  But her meatiest part this year must have been as a woman who is seduced by her daughter’s boyfriend in Channel 5’s Penance. Is he decent or deadly? Don’t succumb to temptation, Julie! I won’t reveal the outcome but as ever she was compulsive viewing.

Roger Sloman - forever nuts in May

One of the first TV Treasures I detailed was Alison Steadman and now he’s joined by Roger Sloman, her co-star in Mike Leigh’s 1976 Play For Today, Nuts in May It chronicled the increasingly fraught camping weekend of middle-class nature-loving couple Keith and Candice-Marie and, for me, Roger Sloman’s performance as the irritatingly controlling Keith was a revelation. What’s more, for weeks it was hard to finish a meal without recalling the ‘chewing 72 times’ mantra, so hilariously challenged by the childlike innocent played by Steadman! His banjo-accompanied folk ditty was also delightfully excruciating but he was usually relegated to backing vocals when amongst the supporting cast of early ‘80s sketch comedy A Kick Up the 80s.  Tracey Ullman and Robbie Coltrane tended to bag the main parts but when the script demanded a prematurely-balding officious Establishment figure, Roger Sloman was perfectly cast. And this reputation has stayed with him for years. 

I’m pretty certain I was amongst the audience for the introductory episodes of the BBC’s groundbreaking school-set soap, Grange Hill in 1978. While most of my contemporaries were focussing on the antics of Tucker et al, it didn’t escape my attention that the dapper PE teacher with a penchant for punctuality, Mr Foster, was played by Sloman. 

With his shiny hairless pate and boggly eyes, he appeared older than his actual age. Consequently, despite being in his early thirties, Roger was usually cast as older men. He was an irritated dog owner in an early episode of All Creatures Great and Small and the nasty TV licence officer Mr Bastard in The Young Ones, in which he showed he could do physical comedy, too. He was back with Rik and Ade in the Nineties sitcom Bottom as the grocer desperate enough to ask the lead characters to mind his shop, and even made a fleeting appearance in the classic Christmas special, Holy. 

There have been other, more conventional situation comedy roles. I remember nothing about the 1981 series Coming Home, but my diary records that Roger Sloman “rescued” it! He was in a 2014 Inside No. 9 and back in over-zealous man-from-the-council mode getting punched from Roger Lloyd Pack in The Vicar of Dibley. Leave the poor man alone, Neville; he’s just doing his job! 

I can’t find any clips but I’d be surprised had I missed watching with relish his guest parts in 1990s dramas Bergerac (as Jim’s boss Inspector Deffand), Cracker, Lovejoy and Wycliffe and he appeared in the enjoyable 1982 run of thriller Bird of Prey. However, for fans of EastEnders, he may be best known as undertaker Les Coker, a regular character earlier this decade. 

By this time I was no longer a regular viewer but did happen to see Roger Sloman’s distinctive face and gawky frame in one scene. A few minutes later, there he was again, only in a dress and make-up. As an actor of forty years’ standing, it was probably his first role as a transvestite and it certainly surprised me! 

At least it demonstrated to me that Roger is more than just a bald head and that wonderfully whiny voice, but he will live on forever as the camping control freak Keith from Nuts in May whose sayings have stayed with me for forty-four years and counting.