Robin Parkinson

Robin Parkinson: 
† Oct 25 1929 – May 7 2022

One of the great skills of the character actor is to invest a peripheral role with enough personality to convince as a real individual in a real situation, without interfering with the main action. In British film and television there exists the recurring figure of the dignified but inconsequential little Englander, a small man who may display any blend of timidity, doggedness, thwarted genius, cheerful dullness, determined helpfulness and ennui. Robin Parkinson is something of a master of these roles.

Desmond pledges to help Miss Jones (Frances De La Tour) with her
drink problem, after a 'word-to-the wise' from a jealous Mr Rigsby

It was recalling his appearance as Desmond, the ardent and poetic librarian suitor of Miss Jones in 'Rising Damp' that got me researching Robin Parkinson, whose name I could not have told you before, and which uncovered a long CV of interesting work stretching back to the '50s.        

In the odd espionage caper 'Catch Me A Spy' (1971) 

On the big screen, you might have spotted him as the jeweller in the ring fiasco of 'Billy Liar' (1963), or in 'The Family Way' (1966), the Clements/La Frenais spy spoof 'Catch Me A Spy' (1971), 'Alfie Darling' (1975), or in the movie spin-off of 'George & Mildred' (1980), but it's probably unlikely.

Assisting Terry (James Bolam) with his suit for Bob's wedding
in 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?'

It's almost certain, though, that you've seen him in television comedy. Apart from the aforementioned 'Rising Damp', he has been in a panoply of vintage sitcoms, ranging from 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?', 'Dad's Army', 'Shelley', 'Moody & Pegg' and 'The Young Ones', to 'The Liver Birds', 'Love Thy Neighbour', 'The Brittas Empire', 'Bless This House', 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', 'Beryl's Lot' and 'Terry & June'. There are lots more, including taking over the role of Monsieur (It is I...) Le Clerc in the later series of 'Allo Allo', although this was after it had gone from feeble to desperate.

As a chatty cabbie in 'The Professionals'

He also turns up in a lot of sketch comedy and light entertainment. You'll see him in the shows of the Two Ronnies, Dick Emery, Kenny Everett, Kelly Monteith, Harry Worth, and Peter Serafinovicz. Light dramas, middle-brow classics, cop shows and cosy crime favourites are also his stock in trade. See for instance, 'Clochemerle', 'The Pickwick Papers', 'The Good Companions', Whodunnit', 'All Creatures Great & Small', 'Van Der Valk', 'Softly Softly', 'The Professionals', 'Rosemary & Thyme', to name but a few.

Presenting the face of respectability to be subjected to the cynical
mordant wit of 'Shelley', as played by the late Hywel Bennet  

Then there's children's television, with 'Danger: Marmalade at Work', 'The Tommorow People', and a long-running stint as the soothingly-voiced narrator of the spoon-puppet show for tinies, 'Button Moon'.

Robin Parkinson narrated all the episodes of 'Button Moon'

The 'little man with spectacles' is, or at least was, a mainstay of British entertainment culture, and Robin Parkinson is a maestro at portraying the many nuances of the type. He's also the man forever perplexed by a bunged-up Peter Cleal in the timeless and iconic Tunes commercial. 

Robin Parkinson-imdb

Tony Caunter

Tony Caunter:
† 22 September 1937 – 13 October 2025

Broad and brawny actor, now most familiar as Roy Evans in 'EastEnders' - the genial car salesman who stepped into the shoes of his rogueish counterpart Frank Butcher (Mike Reid) - in fact Tony Caunter has played his small part in some of the best of British cinema and television.

Tony Caunter in 'The Likely Lads': a classic tragicomic moment. Terry reluctantly
joins the Army to stick with his mate Bob, who is sent home because of his flat feet.    

You could, for example, have seen him in a host of cult classics, from 'The Avengers', 'The Saint' and 'The Champions' in the '60s, through to 'The Professionals', 'The Sweeney' and 'Minder', not to mention fanboy favourites like 'Catweazle', 'Blakes 7', and of course 'Doctor Who' (in three stories: 'The Crusade', 'Colony in Space' and 'Enlightenment') .

As Kenneth Cope's exasperated site manager in 'Catweazle'.
'He that moves the Wogle Stone, all alone shall moan and groan.'  

He's in some well-regarded drama, including 'Pennies From Heaven',  as well as more humdrum stuff  such as 'London's Burning', 'Home to Roost', 'Queenie's Castle', 'Howards' Way', 'Lovejoy', 'May to December', 'Boon', 'Heartbeat', 'Z-Cars',  'Juliet Bravo', 'Holby City', 'The Main Chance', and the short-lived BBC seaside family-feud 'Westbeach'.

Keeping an eye on Harry Palmer in 'The Ipcress File' (1965)

In the cinema, he crops up in the harrowing military prison drama 'The Hill' (1965) with Sean Connery and Ian Hendry, and has an appropriately blink-and-you'll-miss-it role as a surveillance man in 'The Ipcress File' (1965). All pretty cosy compared with life in Albert Square with Pat Butcher and family.

'EastEnders' with Pam St Clement.

Tony Caunter - imdb

Elissa Derwent

Elissa Derwent

What became of Elissa Derwent? An attractive bit-part actress of the early '70s, who turns up in a few BBC comedies like 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads', 'The Liver Birds', 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em' and 'Open All Hours' (pictured above, looking a bit like Jenny Agutter and making Granville fall off his bike), her last documented TV appearance was in a small role in 'Forgive Our Foolish Ways' a 1980 BBC drama about a girl who falls for a German POW in at the end of the war.

Mistaking Colin (Brian Grellis) for Terry in the 'Birthday Boy'
episode of 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads'

Another misunderstanding. As the librarian dealing with
apparent sex-pest Frank Spencer in 'Some Mothers...'.

Further researches draw a bit of a blank, but I wonder if she's the same Elissa Derwent who wrote this book on spiritualism:

'For Whom the Cup Has Flowed: Received from the Spiritual and Angelic Realms Through the Mind of Elissa Derwent'. (Currently out of stock at Amazon).

Heaven knows. 

Elissa Derwent-imdb

Brian Grellis

Brian Grellis:

A tall Northern actor with a distinctive, slightly crumpled face and often unruly hair, who pops up in quite a few small roles as coppers and servicemen, but making something of a speciality of the befuddled passer-by. You might recall him as the likeable, cricket-loving vegetable pilferer in 'The Good Life', or as the unfortunate stranger lured to Terry's surprise birthday party in 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'.

In the WWII actioner 'Submarine X-1' (1968)

In the Tom Baker era Doctor Who adventure 'The Invisible Enemy'

A stalwart character actor, appearing in a number of stalwarts of British television: 'Minder', 'Z-Cars', 'Softly Softly', 'Bergerac', 'The Gentle Touch', etc. The chances are you've never particularly noticed him, but he's been there all the same. Some middle-brow dramas too, 'Anna Karenina', 'War and Peace' and 'A Tale of Two Cities'. His cult TV tally includes 'Doctor Who' (two stories from the Tom Baker era, one with Peter Davison), plus 'Jason King', 'The Frighteners' and 'Survivors'. 

Waiting for the big bang in the nuclear bomb drama 'Threads'  

Sightings on the big screen are mostly in the war and spy genres, and often uncredited: 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' (1969), the forgotten Len Deighton story 'Only When I Larf' (1968), and 'Submarine X-1' (1968), although he does get a speaking role in the latter. 

Get your hair cut... Working at the Ministry
in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' (1969). 

He doesn't seem to have done much since the late-'80s, but I trust he is alive and well.

Brian Grellis-imdb

Margaret Nolan

Margaret Nolan:

† Oct 29 1943 - Oct 5 2020 


Prodigiously busty blonde actress and glamour model who features prominently in some classic and not-so-classic British cinema of the '60s and '70s. The iconic opening titles of 'Goldfinger' (1964) feature scenes from the film projected on to her gold-painted body and lamé bikini, and she appears early in the film as Bond's Miami masseuse, and at the other end of the spectrum she is imprinted on the collective psyche as Dawn Brakes in 'Carry On Girls' (1973), wrestling with Miss Fircombe beauty contest rival Barbara Windsor, but wearing a silver bikini this time.        

 'Carry On Girls' (1973)

With Wilfrid Brambell in 'A Hard Day's Night' (1963)

Despite all the cheesecake and Carry Ons, she definitely proved comfortable with speaking roles and gave creditable performances in more serious TV favourites like the tough gangster serial 'Fox' and things like 'The Sweeney', 'The Persuaders' and 'Budgie'. More often than not, though, it was cheeky dollybird roles that beckoned, such as 'Q9', 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads', 'Steptoe & Son' and even the third-ever episode of 'Last of the Summer Wine' from 1973.     

As old flame Jackie in 'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads'

With Valerie Leon in 'No Sex Please, We're British' (1975)

In recent years, she has taken up photo-montage, mainly working with glamour images of herself, which is an intriguingly empowering twist on a career defined by the male gaze. 

 

'Yeah Yeah Yeah (On White)'.
Photo-montage by Margaret Nolan, 2013

  


Margaret Nolan-imdb

Sheila Fearn

Sheila Fearn: 

A little bit of glamour now, of the wholesome British sort. The lovely Sheila Fearn, who managed to embody both confident sexiness and a down-to-earth mix of good humour and common sense. This impression probably stems largely from two of her best-known roles; as Terry Collier's sister Audrey in 'The Likely Lads' and as the witty and unaffected Anne Fourmile in 'George & Mildred'.

Other golden-era TV appearances include 'The Avengers', 'Z-Cars', 'Adam Adamant Lives', and even an episode of ' The Beverly Hilbillies' where they come to live in an English castle (it's one of the colour series from 1967, I don't know if it ever aired in the UK). She never seemed to hit the big time on the cinema screen, but her few minor roles are in some interesting films, such as 'Billy Liar' (1963), 'Catch Us If You Can' (1965), and an unusually unsympathetic turn as Kevin's mother in 'Time Bandits' (1981) alongside stalwart David Daker. In later years she showed up as Timothy's would-be girlfriend in the depressing Ronnie Corbett TV comedy 'Sorry!' (see also Roy Holder), but faded from sight in the '80s.

At one point, her Wikipedia entry contained a suggestion that her career was brought to an abrupt halt by injury in a serious accident, much as her 'George & Mildred' co-star Norman Eshley's was, although hers was described as a (rather unlikely-sounding) mountaineering fall. This may have been some sort of unedited wiki-mischief, as currently it just says that she retired from acting in 1988.  

Either way, I hope she is in good health these days, and hopefully there might be more acting work in Sheila Fearn's future.            

'The Likely Lads'

'The Avengers' - Murdersville  

'Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'

'George and Mildred'

Sheila Fearn - imdb

Helen Fraser

Helen Fraser:

A much loved actress and a very famous face (though, inexplicably, not a household name) for British audiences, on the strength of her peerlessly frumpy fusspot, Barbara, in 'Billy Liar' (1962), numerous sitcoms, and a semi-regular role in 'The Dick Emery Show' (as the daughter of his gurgling old codger, Lampwick). Other TV roles include 'Rising Damp' (playing the bride in the episode 'The Newlyweds'), and 'The Likely Lads', carrying on into the '80s and '90s in the likes of 'Duty Free' and 'One Foot in the Grave'.      

Her biggest role in later years has been as the tough-as-old-boots prison warder Sylvia Hollamby in nearly a hundred episodes of the semi-gritty behind-bars drama, 'Bad Girls', which ran from 1999-2006. 

A character-actor star, and a suitable subject for Familiar Unknown's 100th blog post.

         

(In Roman Polanski's 1965 classic 'Repulsion', with Catherine Deneuve; and dolled up in the 1968 Harold Pinter misery-fest 'The Birthday Party')

By way of an aside – Ms Fraser met her late husband, Peter Handford, on the set of 'Billy Liar'. He was a film and television sound recordist but had a hobby/sideline in recording the sounds of steam engines. Some of his archive was released on the Argo label in the '50s and '60s in the form of 7''EPs, which I now collect.

         

Helen Fraser -imdb

Robert Gillespie

Robert Gillespie:

Strange, impish character actor with a distinctive 'halting and blinking' delivery. He trained at RADA, which may account for his ability to be memorable and compelling in a lot of fairly slight and minor roles. His star turn in the seemingly bland family sitcom 'Keep It In The Family' was notable for his portrayal of the childlike, manically depressed Dudley Rush - a comic-strip artist with a hinted history of breakdowns and mental issues who lives with his attractive, supportive wife (played by Pauline Yates, echoing her performance in 'Reggie Perrin') and pert grown-up daughters. He only draws when holding the pen with a glove-puppet lion...  

Other TV roles include the unhappy transvestite Mr Mince in the first episode of 'Agony', the fair-minded chairman of the residents association, Mr Carter, in 'The Good Life', and the long suffering police sergeant in 'Man About The House' who was to become a recurring character extending even unto the realms of 'George & Mildred'. His resume stretches back to the '60s, and includes comedy like 'Dad's Army', 'Up Pompeii', 'Porridge', 'Rising Damp' and 'The Liver Birds'. There's a smattering of cult classics too: 'The Avengers', The Sweeney', 'Doomwatch', 'The Survivors', and the rather forgotten kids adventure series 'The Freewheelers'.

On the big screen, watch out for him in 'Otley' (1968), 'Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed' (1969). 'The National Health' (1973), 'Barry MacKenzie Holds His Own' (1974), and of course he played the AA man in my old favourite, 'The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins' (1971).

A scandal of some sort cut his on-screen career short in the '90s, but he is still acting and an innovative and successful director and writer for the stage.

But this is the good stuff, to my way of thinking: from 'Whatever Happened to The Likely Lads?'

Robert Gillespie - imdb profile