Marcia Warren

Marcia Warren:

A very accomplished, indeed award-winning, stage actress, often seen in Alan Ayckbourn's comedy plays but equally at home with Shakespeare, Chekhov and Beckett, she has nevertheless been able to fit in a number of memorable film and TV roles. She might be familiar as William Gaunt's troublesome neighbour, Vera Botting, from the '80s BBC comedy 'No Place Like Home', or possibly from the more recent 'Vicious' with Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Frances De La Tour - all of whom she has acted with on various prestigious stages.    

Brilliantly portraying the great character actress Esma Cannon in a recreation of 
'Carry On Cabby' from the TV drama 'Hattie'. Ruth Jones plays Hattie Jacques

Equally adept at playing duchesses and dogsbodies, Marcia Warren has also appeared in some good quality television drama, see 'The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes', 'The Father Brown Mysteries' and 'The History of Mr Polly', (edit: Add the 2017 season opener of 'Sherlock' to that list) as well as a lot of average prime time series such as 'Holby City', 'The Bill', 'Midsomer Murders', 'Doctors' and 'Casualty'. 

As the unworldly Penelope in the camp sitcom, 'Vicious',
starring Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen 

Sitcoms have been a staple of her TV career, including the generally forgotten 1983 Larbey and Esmonde effort 'Now and Then', 'September Song', 'Life Of Riley', 'Searching', 'Jam & Jerusalem', 'Miracles Take Longer' and 'Keeping Up Appearances'.   

As the widow of the mild-mannered lothario in 'Mr Love' (1985)
Behind her is the late Patsy Byrne, Nursie from 'Blackadder' 

Films include 'Mr Love' (1985), 'Don't Get Me Started' (1994),  'Unconditional Love' (2002), 'Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont' (2005), 'Leap Year' (2010).

Marcia Warren-imdb

John Owens

John Owens:

It seems that lanky, long-chinned actor John Owens has appeared in a lot of my favourite TV programmes over the years, but has always somehow flown just under my recognition radar. Looking at his resumé on the ever-useful imdb website, I notice that he has had a lot of no-name roles that suggest the fringes of extra-dom; 'waiter', 'salesman', 'man in cupboard', 'jumble donor' and quite often 'vicar'. This does him little justice. 

'Oh Crikey!' It's Rik's favourite TV show in 'The Young Ones'

He's in one of the most classic of 'Doctor Who' stories for a start, 'The Daemons' from 1971 (see picture at top of page), as well as classic serials 'Nicholas Nickleby' and 'Sense and Sensibility', period dramas like 'To Serve Them All My Days', 'The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes' and 'The Monocled Mutineer'. You might also catch a glimpse of him in lots of popular early-evening stuff like 'Lovejoy', 'Shoestring', 'The Professionals' and 'Reilly Ace of Spies'.   

One of several vicar roles, this one in the gentle police sitcom 'Rosie'

Plenty of comedy too. He was a regular on 'The Dick Emery Show' and 'The Two Ronnies' (in fact, he works the slightly weak visual punchline of the famous 'four candles' sketch) plus a sprinkling of sitcoms that includes 'Terry & June', 'Whatever Happened to the The Likely Lads', 'Please Sir', 'Potter', 'Rosie' and 'Rings On Their Fingers'. And some of the more whimsical and sophisticated '70s and '80s offerings, such as 'Fairly Secret Army', 'Mister Pye' and 'Mapp & Lucia', before brushing with alternative comedy, satire and dark humour via 'The Young Ones', 'Time Trumpet', 'Look Around You' (as Teddy Clarke, leader of the vegetable orchestra) and 'Nighty Night'. 

Trying to sell insurance to Hyacinth in 'Keeping Up Appearances' 

Not too much cinema work. But he's in 'Oh! What a Lovely War' (1969), 'An American Werewolf In London' (1981), and 'From Hell' (2001).

As a gangland gunman in 'Clegg' aka 'The Bullet Machine' (1970) 

John Owens- imdb

Josephine Tewson

Josephine Tewson:

† Feb 26 1931 – Aug 18 2022

A charming perennial of British TV comedy, Josephine Tewson is probably most easily spotted these days in the perpetual repeats of 'Keeping Up Appearances', in which she plays the sensitive and genteel Elizabeth, driven to the edge of neurotic despair by her appalling social-climbing neighbour.

In an episode of  'The Champions'

Her early career led from RADA to Bristol rep in the late '50s, where she met and married Leonard Rossiter in 1959, although they divorced in 1961. The first half of the '60s saw her in a few serials and television plays, but by the end of the decade she had carved a niche playing opposite comedians. Charlie Drake, Dick Emery, Jimmy Tarbuck, satire-period David Frost and, above all, Ronnie Barker, cast her regularly in their TV series, utilising her effortless ability to play everything from glamorous countesses to goggling charladies    

Soon to be bumped off by dashing serial killer Michael Jayston in the
Brian Clemens 'Thriller' episode, 'A Coffin for the Bride'.

The '70s and '80s saw her make her mark in sitcom-land, the better of those being the splendidly cynical 'Shelley' with Hywel Bennett, and old pal Ronnie Barker's curiously understated period piece 'Clarence'. Some of the less splendid include 'Terry & June', 'No Appointment Necessary' (something of a flop, despite starring Roy Kinnear), and the pitiful 'Odd Man Out' with John Inman as the hapless boss of a seaside rock factory. Fortunately, Hyacinth and her endless gaffes were just around the corner. The geriatric japes of 'Last of the Summer Wine' have been a more recent development, with a regular role as Miss Davenport the librarian. 

Not sure what to make of Ronnie Barker's coarse but sincere
removals man in the first episode of 'Clarence'.

There are a couple of small roles in interesting, if not particularly funny, comedy films on her CV too. She's in the now generally forgotten Cleese and Chapman effort 'The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It' (1977), and she plays a nun of the Order of St Beryl, as Pete and Dud milk their old gag in the misfiring Holmes spoof 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' (1978).   

Josephine Tewson - imdb

Judy Cornwell

Judy Cornwell: 

Okay, so here's someone who is perhaps not so very unknown. Yes, it's Hyacinth's sister Daisy: possessive snuggler of Geoffrey Hughes' s Onslow in 'Keeping Up Appearances', and as it transpires, a very accomplished and respected figure in the acting profession. You've seen her in TV dramas like 'Mill on the Floss', 'Persuasion', 'David Copperfield' and 'The Good Companions'. And she's had a regular role in 'EastEnders' as Queenie Trott, the horrid mother of jokey storyline (and eventually murder) victim Heather Trott.

Originally a dancer, she's swished dynamically from dolly-birds and parlour maids to matrons and matriarchs with some style. I can't remember (even though the theme tune was one of my favourite bits of library music) the comedy series 'Moody & Pegg' in which she starred with the late Derek Waring, but her name has been no stranger to the Radio Times and TV Times. See, for example: 'Doctor Who', 'Bergerac', 'Rumpole of the Bailey', 'Boon', and no less than three guest spots in 'Doctors'.

On the big screen there was Marty Feldman's anarchic advertising satire 'Every Home Should Have One' (1970), she played Filligree Fondle in the psychedelic Anthony Newley and Joan Collins sex-comedy 'Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?' (1969), and was in the rather more thoughtful 'Two for the Road' (1967) with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney.

More recently, there's been 'Mad Cows' (1999), and she was a charming Mrs Claus in the 'Santa Claus: The Movie' (1985) with Dudley Moore.

Judy Cornwell - imdb

David Janson

David Janson: 

Always seemingly eager to please, this boyishly bowl-cut actor has cropped up in odd forgotten corners of British TV for nearly 50 years, including appearances in 'Softly, Softly', 'Doomwatch', 'Jason King', 'The Fenn Street Gang', 'Dixon of Dock Green', 'Z-Cars', 'Brush Strokes', 'T-Bag Strikes Again', 'Ever Decreasing Circles', 'Get Some In!', 'The Upper Hand', and Hyacinth Bucket's long-suffering postman in 'Keeping Up Appearances'.

His first brush with fame came as the truant schoolboy in Richard Lester's much loved Beatles movie 'A Hard Day's Night' (1963) in the sequence where Ringo similarly plays truant from the band, kicking stones into the canal and messing around with his new camera.  A stint in the then-popular TV drama 'The Newcomers' (groovy theme by John Barry) in 1965/66 seemed promising, but it's all-but forgotten now.

The nearest he came to front-room TV star status was in the RAF national service comedy 'Get Some In' as likeable everyman Ken Richardson, constantly victimised by the 'orrible Corporal Marsh (Tony Selby). But somehow his leading man status seemed to ebb away in the direction of cheeky teddy boy Robert Lindsay (soon to get his big break as Wolfie in 'Citizen Smith'). Even more discouraging was his short-lived stint in 'Allo Allo', inexplicably replacing Richard Gibson as Herr Flick of the Gestapo in the last death throes of the series in 1992.  

And so a character actor he has remained, and we salute him here.  

  

As Michael the postman in 'Keeping Up Appearances'

With Ringo Starr in 'A Hard Day's Night' (1963)

David Janson - imdb

Clive Swift

Clive Swift: 

† Feb 9 1936 – Jan 31 2019

Tidy and precise sort of actor, often typecast as the timid official or henpecked husband - for example, the long-suffering Richard Bucket in the interminable 'Keeping Up Appearances'. His earlier career included some interesting British films like 'Death Line' (1973), 'Frenzy' (1972), the Dave Clark 5 clunker 'Catch Us If You Can' (1965) and Peter Hall's 'Midsummer Night's Dream' (1968). I'd be disappointed if he hadn't been in 'Doctor Who', 'Heartbeat', 'Tales Of The Unexpected' and 'Minder', but of course, he was.

He was also in A Warning to the Curious, The Stalls of Barchester, Excalibur, and the 1972 BBC 'Dead of Night' ghost story 'The Exorcism' - looking pretty groovy.

Clive Swift - imdb profile