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!

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.

Derek Martin - The London Cabbie for all ages

For many years, Derek Martin was an easily forgotten name, but the same could not be said of his face or voice. He wasn’t quite in the Ray Winstone/Alan Ford league as a Cockney ‘heavy’ but as a genuine East Londoner with a stint at Smithfield market on his CV his Cockney credentials earned him lots of TV work. So often, In Seventies cop shows I watched, like Softly Softly and Dixon of Dock Green, he’d be a common-or-garden Len, Ted or Dick. As a van, lorry or taxi driver. he possessed  the authenticity of a Londoner behind the wheel.

For me, Derek’s relative anonymity was blown apart when in his late sixties he established himself in the cast of Eastenders, but his overnight celebrity took more than four decades to happen. In the early Seventies I must have seen him in the family business drama The Brothers (as ‘van driver’, surprise surprise) and the quirky children’s sci-fi serial Man Dog. Sadly I couldn’t find a clip of the latter but it made a substantial impression on me, helped by its familiar Southampton locations.

Later in the decade he became a familiar figure in ITV crime capers, invariably on the wrong side of the law. In an episode of The Sweeney, he even managed to out-run Dennis Waterman’s Carter, but I daresay he was nicked by the closing credits. That same year, he played another villain in The Professionals, and then a ‘heavy’ up against Waterman again in Minder.

Derek Martin wasn’t always one of the bad guys. He upheld the forces of law and order, albeit under the radar, in programmes like Z Cars and even Terry and June, but it was in The Chinese Detective that he really made his mark. At that time (1981-2), this was quite a ground-breaking series, providing a rare starring role for an ‘ethnic minority’ actor. I loved David Yip in that show, portraying the mild-mannered but slightly unorthodox (is there any other kind of cop on TV?) John Ho, clashing not only with criminals but also his boss DCI Berwick, played by Derek Martin. He was old-school Londoner, and displayed the sort of casual racism that pervaded much of the police in those days. In my mind’s eye I can still see him shouting “’O, ‘O” at his sergeant! I think there grew a grudging mutual respect between the two by the end, but it ran for only two series.

In the Nineties, I watched some of ITV’s Lynda la Plante prison drama The Governor, in which Derek played Janet McTeer’s deputy but I missed out on one of his largest roles, in King and Castle. However, it is as a regular cast member of a couple of soaps that he has become part of my TV furniture.

Back in ’93, he joined the Beeb’s ill-fated foray into international drama, Eldorado. Located in an expat community on the Costa del Sol, it carried a great deal of investment, financial and professional. As a BBC employee, I fervently wished for success but it was doomed from the first creaking instalment which, somewhat improbably, I watched from a Channel ferry. In hindsight, box-ticking took priority over plotlines, and the European eye-candy failed to attract the younger audiences. A few of them could barely act. The hostile anti-Beeb press finished the job. Removing the dead wood and bringing in some sterling British character actors did help but the plug was pulled after a single year. As Alex Morris Derek Martin appeared in forty episodes, including the very last but, to be honest, all I can remember was ‘Mucky Marcus’ escaping from an exploding car. 

In comparison I have a clear memory of his arrival in Albert Square as Charlie Slater and his dysfunctional family of females. That was 2000, and in all he went on to make nearly 800 episodes of Eastenders. Apparently Derek had been considered for both Dirty Den and Frank Butcher (there’s a thought!) but as East End cabbie Charlie, he must have been a shoo-in for the casting team. At first he had some meaty storylines, even becoming involved in some fisticuffs, but it was for his verbal clashes with mother-in-law Big Mo (Laila Morse) that he is best remembered by me.

The character also brought him a few related TV roles, be they in Eastenders spin-offs or as cameos in comedies such as Little Britain. In my opinion he made a splendid straight man to Matt Lucas’ grotesque Fatfighters leader Marjory. But then that has always been Derek Martin’s strength. For fifty years he’s been one of our most dependable supporting actors on the box. I’ll never know how he might have fared battling with Angie Watts or wooing Pat Butcher wearing nowt but a rotating bow tie but, now well into his eighties, I reckon Derek Martin has done enough to enter my role call of Treasures.

Patrick Mower - Rough, rogish charmer

In 2010 previous 'treasure' Jan Francis briefly played the love interest of Emmerdale character Rodney Blackstock. Now, I’m no great fan of the soap. I wasn’t even exposed to it until about 2012 when I joined the Milic household and since then I’ve maintained no more than a half-hearted relationship with ITV’s daily saga of everyday rural farmers, gangsters, drug dealers and murderers.   

I’ve paid enough attention to observe that Rodney was and remains a comedy character who seems to flit in and out of scenes without any heavy storylines. Yet my first impression on was disbelief; blimey, it’s only Patrick Mower! 

It brought back vivid memories of the one-time tough guy and Seventies heartthrob. Rodney is a bit of a throwback to that era anyway, wealthy and waltzing through life, trying to relive his youth through sex, drugs and a few nefarious activities. The blow-dried hair may be tinged with steel grey but the broad cheeky grin hasn’t changed. Incredibly he’s now in his eighties!

The Mower I remember wouldn’t have spent much time in a country pub or farm shop. He was usually playing suave spies or all-action cops, and not necessarily likeable ones. I can’t be sure where I first saw him. It could have been in ITV’s impenetrable spy series Callan. Edward Woodward played the eponymous secret agent but Mower and another face of Seventies TV, Anthony Valentine, were regular members of his team. Like many threads from the era, Mower’s ‘dead sheep’ jacket passed the fashion police test but is in severe danger of getting arrested in 2020.

I have stronger memories of Special Branch. It had been launched during the Sixties as a predominantly studio-based drama but it’s the later series which I recall. George Sewell’s DCI Craven and Patrick Mower’s more rough and ready DCI Haggerty were more often found arguing in offices or chasing villains on location and there was enough action to keep this twelve year-old interested. I always felt Haggerty was the perfect name for the character and it wasn’t much of a leap to Hackett, which provided Mower’s first real starring role a few years later in Target.

After Special Branch, Euston Films had ramped up the violence – and popularity amongst teenagers – with The Sweeney. In ’77, the Beeb responded in kind with a new Patrick Mower vehicle. Speaking of vehicles, DSupt Steve Hackett would tear around the Home Counties in Ford Granadas and Transit vans, not to mention his personal Mercury Cougar, before indulging in lots of gratuitous chases and punch-ups. Sadly, being the BBC, the bosses kow-towed to Mary Whitehouse’s tiny but influential bunch of complainers, toning down the action and killing off the show after only two series. Admittedly it wasn’t as compelling as The Sweeney or The Professionals but Patrick Mower was very much the equal, if not the superior of Martin Shaw or Lewis Collins.

It was perhaps ironic that Patrick had in 1975 guest-starred in two of the most memorable episodes of The Sweeney. In ‘Golden Fleece’, he and George Layton played a pair of Aussie armed robbers, whose ‘Nice and easy does it’ theme and easy-going banter enabled them to achieve the impossible and outwit Regan and Carter. They weren’t archetypal Flying Squad baddies. Instead of hard men played by Ronald Lacey, Ken Hutchison or Ian Hendry, they were actually quite wimpy, furthering their careers with corny chat-up lines to make girls swoon and a fine line in light banter. Those, and an arsenal of shotguns and grenades. A few weeks later they showed up again but this time the forces of law and order took revenge. In a classic shootout in a Wapping wasteland, the outnumbered bad boys were finally captured. Was it just me who cheered when they were caught? Viewers were clearly encouraged to admire the loveable rogues but – hang on – they were vicious criminals unafraid to terrorise householders and shoot to kill when cornered…. 

The notion of Patrick Mower the criminal charmer was so strong that in 1981 he evaded another normally infallible detective in the form of Bergerac. No shotguns this time – it was set on Jersey, after all – but he nonetheless contrived to outrun our Jim and bid a cheeky wave from the ferry as it headed away from the quay. He never returned either. Instead he appeared on another island, Rhodes, for a supernatural thriller, Dark Side of the Sun. I know I watched it, but can remember very little.

His stock as a twinkly-eyed, dimpled ladies’ man remained high in the mid-Eighties, endearing him to viewers and marketing men alike. He became a familiar face advertising that once-trendy tipple Babycham and the rather more masculine if mundane Austin Rover cars. Apparently Patrick Mower once said he would never do more than two series in any single role, which brings me back to Emmerdale and Rodney Blackstock, played so far for twenty years. With villainous tendencies and an impudent glint in the eye, it feels like he’s been playing that role forever.