Nickolas Grace

Nickolas Grace

Dark haired (now distinguished grey) and rheumy-eyed, with a hint of sophisticated malfeasance and 'mwah-ha-ha', Nickolas Grace has played wonderful mixture of mainly villainous and disreputable characters over the years. He's possibly most familiar for his masterful turn as the Sheriff of Nottingham in 'Robin of Sherwood' or as the impossibly louche Anthony Blanche in 'Brideshead Revisited'. 
   

'Brideshead Revisited'

As the Sheriff of Nottingham in 'Robin of Sherwood'

There has been a strong thread of comedy shows down the years. These range from the rather mundane to the quite strange, eg: 'The Fenn Street Gang', 'Birds Of A Feather', 'Alas Smith & Jones', the peculiar medical-themed sketch revue 'The Pink Medicine Show', the wilfully bizarre 'Inside Victor Lewis Smith' and the successful sitcoms 'My Family' and 'Absolutely Fabulous'.       

In the comedy short 'The Hardest Part' (2010) with Jeremy Child

But drama has always been to the fore, with roles in quality costume stuff such as the Pre-Raphaelite shenanigans of 'The Love School', 'Napoleon & Josephine' (as Nelson), 'Morte D'Arthur', 'Decline and Fall', 'The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes', 'Casanova', 'Merlin' and a bravura title turn in 'Lorca, Death Of A Poet' which he acted in English with a Spanish cast and production company and was later re-dubbed.

In the exceptional BBC drama 'Killing Eve'

Crime, political intrigue and action shows have included 'The Survivors', 'The Final Cut', 'The Chief', 'The Professionals', a smattering of 'Marple', 'Alleyn', 'Midsomer Murders'-type mid-evening mysteries, and light dramas of the 'Lovejoy', 'Minder' and 'Bergerac' ilk. He also pops up in the cult Gerry Anderson flop 'Space Precinct' and the critically acclaimed 'Killing Eve'. He's a respected stage actor and director, but what seems to come over on the screen is an almost irresistible sense of enjoyment and relish for every role, however meaty or slight. A craftsman.           

Nickolas Grace-imdb

Janet Henfrey

Janet Henfrey:

With her rather severe features - somewhere between Edith Sitwell and Geoffrey Bayldon - Janet Henfrey has been called on to play forbidding schoolmarms and formidable aristocrats, although she also has a nice line in charming English eccentricity. You may remember her from the schoolroom flashbacks in Dennis Potter's 'The Singing Detective', or have seen her quite recently in 'Dr Who' or 'Toast Of London'. 

Another scary Dennis Potter schoolteacher. This one from
'Stand Up Nigel Barton', a BBC Wednesday Play from 1965

She has a long association with the RSC and the Oxford Playhouse and her TV and film appearances were relatively sparsely distributed in the period from the early '60s until the early '80s. TV work has seen a variety of period dramas from 'Silas Marner' to 'Tipping The Velvet', and lots of Dickens adaptations. Lighter drama and comedy jobs include 'Jeeves & Wooster', 'Boon', 'Lovejoy', 'Father Brown', 'Agatha Christie's Marple', and a regular turn in 'As Time Goes By' with Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer.   

Less than a second to live... In the 2014 'Dr Who'
episode 'Mummy On The Orient Express' 

Film appearances include 'Reds' (1981), 'The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover' (1989), 'The Man Who Knew Too Little (1998), 'Les Miserables' (1998), 'Metamorphosis' (2012), and her earliest role, in Tommy Steele's 'It's All Happening' (1963). 

As girls' school headmistress, Miss Mapleton, extracting Bertie from
the police station in 'Jeeves & Wooster', thanks to Jeeves's intervention  

With Benjamin Whitrow and Matt Berry in 'Toast Of London'

She has appeared in a substantial number of kids' shows, such as 'Chocky', 'Simon & The Witch', 'Mr Majeika', 'The Famous Five', 'The Worst Witch' and 'Mike & Angelo'. She also has the distinction of having been in two Dr Who stories, the Sylveste McCoy era 'Curse of Fenric' and the Peter Capaldi episode 'Mummy On The Orient Express.

Looking a bit more contemporary in the 1988 BBC
children's show 'Simon & The Witch'.

Janet Henfrey-imdb