Christopher Godwin

Christopher Godwin:

The pinched and narrow features of this very familiar character actor seem to have often found themselves used as a shorthand for petty bureaucrats, jobsworths and sniffy middle-class executives, but a glance at his track record shows some surprising highlights. 

Perhaps fans of TV comedy will be most conscious of his presence, as he turns up in a lot of forgotten '80s schedule-fillers: 'The Other 'Arf' with Lorraine Chase, 'South of the Border', 'Roger Doesn't Live Here Any More' and 'Nice Work' with Edward Woodward. He was in 'Holding the Fort', the sitcom with Peter Davison and Patricia Hodge as a role-reversal army couple with live-in slob, Fitz, played by Matthew Kelly. There was a starring role in the unfunny 'Astronauts', written by Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden in 1981. More interesting was the satirical north/south series 'Snakes and Ladders' from 1989. A Marks and Gran creation with Celia Imrie and John Gordon Sinclair.    

Only here for the beer. With Mr McKay in
the film version of 'Porridge' (1979)

On the drama front, see him in: 'Z Cars', 'Softly Softly', 'Thomas & Sarah' and the sun-drenched 1987 TV adaptation of  'My Family and Other Animals', as well as 'The Bill' and the Daniel Radcliffe drama 'A Young Doctor's Notebook'. 

Film work includes: 'Porridge' (1979), 'A Handful of Dust' (1988) and the infamous Handmade Films debacle 'Bullshot' (1983).     
 

In 'A Handful of Dust' (1988)

 

Christopher Godwin-imdb

Derek Deadman

Derek Deadman: 

† May 1940 – November 21 2014

A former window-cleaner who has made a decent career out of playing dimwits, to the point that he hardly needs to act at all. Which is a good thing, as his acting seems to consist mostly of scratching his head and doing huge double-takes. See his definitive turn as Ringo in the excruciating 'Never The Twain', and spots in 'Benny Hill' (as a sort of junior Bob Todd), 'Porridge', 'George & Mildred', 'Get Some In' and hundreds of bit-part hospital porters, cabbies, butchers, and petty crooks, as well as Stor the Sontaran in the 1978 'Doctor Who' story 'The Invasion of Time'.

'Get busy with the fizzy!' Sodastream advert circa 1980 

In Michael Winner's star-studded but so dreary
British-set version of "The Big Sleep' (1978)  

He was in 'Brazil' (1985), 'Bullshot' (1983), 'Time Bandits' (1981) and a 'Harry Potter' (Philosopher's Stone, 2001), doing more of the same, and fulfilling a constant need within British cinema. For which we salute him.

Update Mar 2015: Sorry to hear that Derek Deadman passed away in Nov 2014.

Derek Deadman - imdb profile