Reliable, lantern-jawed, mop-haired tradesman/yokel, facially halfway between Lance Percival and Vernon Kay, familiar to sitcom fans, and hence also sitcom film fans (The Up Pompeii! films, That’s Your Funeral). Also in boat-missing spy spoof The London Connection, hamming it up a treat as brusque maths teacher Mr Turkentine in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and of course, in Krull as Ergo the Magnificent (‘Short in stature, tall in power, narrow of purpose and wide of vision!’)
FINEST HOUR: Top billing alongside Benny Hill in oft-overlooked near-silent comedy short The Waiter (1971), as the more sober of the pair of waiting staff.
dave kennedy
May 14, 2014 at 3:23 am
Finest hour? Surely as the Harrods delivery man in xmas edition of the good life?