TV Cream

Hall of Fame

CARMICHAEL, Ian

carmichaelWe can only presume that Carmichael’s celestial briar is fuming at the sought not to mention sound of the clodhopping ‘teen’ remake of his masterwork, School for Scoundrels. Though he’d never be so ghastly as to actually express such revulsion of course. Daffy upper class public school twit with a streak of steel in him, Carmichael was undoubtedly a major talent who never got the acting plaudits he deserved on account of perpetrating the unforgivable crime of giving the public what they wanted, like Sean Connery or Roger Moore. But like Connery and Moore Carmichael was as much an indispensable part of his epoch as anyone was and for that he should be garlanded. His affable but pathetic uselessness in School for Scoundrels is pathetic but funny. But such was his skill in the role that when he changed places with caddish TT the audience cheered instead of jeered, which in less skillful hands they might easily have done. And that was just one role! There were dozens of others and all just as good.

FINEST HOUR: As patsy turned provocateur Windrush in I’m All Right, Jack. See the cut of that Tweed ye dastardly villains and quake!

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