Matthew Scurfield

Matthew Scurfield: 

Distinctive beaky character actor who crops up in a lot of popular TV from the '70s onward... That's how I would usually kick off one of these little salutes to a character actor, peppering the entry with references to popular cultural touchstones, perhaps TV favourites such as 'The Sweeney', 'Pie In The Sky' or 'The Bill', or marginal roles in popular movies like '1984' (1984), 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark' (1981).  

I get the feeling, though, that Matthew Scurfield has some more interesting stuff going on. 

Playing a KGB agent in the Michael Caine and Lawrence Olivier
spy thriller, 'The Jigsaw Man' (1983)

He certainly has popped up in a bunch of that stuff, but the more I find out about him, the more interesting he seems. I could list a lot of middling '70s-'90s sitcoms and prime-time dramas from 'C.A.T.S. Eyes', 'Wycliffe'  and 'Boon' to 'Ripping Yarns', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy' and 'Educating Marmalade'. Like some other British character actors, he was also rounded up for 'Game Of Thrones'. 
Brought up in an academic household but encumbered with undiagnosed dyslexia, he has tracked back and forth across high, mid and low-brow culture, from hanging out with Syd Barrett and Steven Berkoff to appearing in 'The Bill' and 'Coronation Street'. 

Waving at West London from a Lincoln Continental with
Pete Townshend in the art school project 'Lone Ranger' (1968)

Perhaps a better idea of the man comes from his pre-professional outing in the art school project 'Lone Ranger' (1968) - Storm Thorgerson and Alfreda Benge were also involved - a slightly rambling affair as you might imagine, but worth having a look at [you can see it here].           

Roughing up Ford Prefect (David Dixon) and Arthur Dent (Simon Jones)
in the BBC TV version of 'The Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy' 

Giving Arthur some grief in the rebooted 'Minder' 

Still acting, but these days he is principally a counsellor based in Malta. His autobiography 'I Could Be Anyone' looks to be well worth investigating.          

Matthew Scurfield-imdb

Peter Jonfield

Peter Jonfield:

With a memorable debut in the 1979 Sherlock Holmes movie 'Murder By Decree', Peter Jonfield's acting career swung into action. The film, starring Christopher Plummer and James Mason, is rather dated, apart from its fashionably '70s conspiracy theme, and it's surprising to find it was shot simultaneously with the groundbreaking 'Alien' at Elstree.    

Shutting the gate behind Natasha Richardson and Joss Ackland in the

1985 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' episode, 'The Copper Beeches'

Peter Jonfield's television career includes a lot of crime series, for instance: 'Bulman', 'Wycliffe', 'Widows 2', 'Bergerac', 'Spender' and a good few episodes of 'The Bill', in which he plays tough coppers, concerned citizens and shifty villains with equal aplomb. 

He also appears in TV comedy such as 'Smith & Jones' and 'Mornin Sarge', and period drama from 'Age Of Treason', 'Foyles War' and 'Bramwell' to 'The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' and 'Sharpe's Regiment'.       



Throttled to death at the docks, attempting to
escape justice in 'Murder By Decree' (1979) 

His film CV includes roles in 'Clockwise' (1986), 'Pink Floyd: The Wall' (1982), 'McVicar' (1980), 'Time Bandits' (1981), 'A Fish Called Wanda' (1988), and in a slightly different mature role as Mr Andrews in 'Pierrpoint: The Last Hangman' (2004).

In 'Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman' (2004)

Peter Jonfield - imdb

Stephen Bent

Stephen Bent:

Yes, that one…

Apart from being the genius behind this classic single, he's a rarely-idle character actor with a stocky build, and often a droopy moustache, who has been spotted in an impressive  array of comedy and drama on our screens over the years. To give you an idea, he's been in 'Doctors' about once every couple of years, playing six different characters so far. 

As the car dealer only able to offer 'Blue Marigold' Toyah Willcox
£900 for her E-Type Jaguar in 'Tales of The Unexpected'

In the '70s he was typically cast as a long haired youth, in the likes of 'Follyfoot', 'The Lovers', 'Z Cars' and Jack Rosenthal's amateur football play 'Sunday Morning and Sweet FA', but as he filled out a little he became associated with a string of parts as workmen, uniformed plod, barmen, prison warders, petty criminals and shortlived boyfriends in shows including 'The Sweeney', 'The Professionals', 'Angels', 'Target' and 'The Liver Birds'. 

In 'City Slacker' (2012), wedged between Tom Conti and Christopher Ryan

In the '80s he seemed to be in almost everything: 'Minder', 'Bergerac', 'Lovejoy', 'Tales of the Unexpected', 'Juliet Bravo', 'Brush Strokes', and 'Casualty'.  Then there were the soaps of course, a fairly full set of 'Crossroads' (ATV were connected via the show 'New Faces' to the Bradley's record label who released 'I'm Going To Spain'), 'Coronation Street', 'EastEnders' and latterly 'Emmerdale' in which he played the seemingly ordinary chap who turns out to be a rapist, Derek Benrose. Since then, you can add 'Truckers', 'My Family', 'Wire In The Blood' and 'Life On Mars' among others.  

As the creepy Derek in 'Emmerdale' 

He was in a few feature films, 'McVicar' (1980), the Vinnie Jones prison football nonsense 'Mean Machine' (2001), 'Ali G In Da House' (2002),  'Les Miserables' (2012), and City Slacker (2012), and he appeared in that supremely odd TV series 'Kinvig' with that other character actor somewhat in the same vein, Tony Haygarth.  

But mainly, this:
'I'm Going To Spain'


Stephen Bent-imdb

Malcolm Terris

'Thriller: The Colour of Blood'

Malcolm Terris: 

This sturdy Wearsider has played countless coppers, aldermen, landlords, country squires and bluff northerners... See, for example, Matt Headley in 'When The Boat Comes In'. Also 'Doctor Who', 'The First Great Train Robbery', 'McVicar', 'Reilly Ace Of Spies', and a stint in 'Coronation Street' in the '90s (the storyline involving Curly Watts and the girl who ended up dead in the freezer...).

'When The Boat Comes In'

'Armchair Thriller: High Tide'

'Agatha Christie's Poirot Investigates'

Malcolm Terris - imdb profile

Georgina Hale

Georgina Hale:
† Aug 4 1943 – Jan 4 2024

Slinky, adenoidal, estuarine glamour-puss who oozed naughtiness in some interesting films (particularly with director Ken Russell) and some classic television in the '70s. She has latterly cornered the market in nouveau riche langour and suburban middle-aged lasciviousness. See 'The Devils', 'Mahler' and 'Lisztomania', and the likes of 'The Boyfriend', 'The Love Ban' and 'McVicar'. She smouldered nicely on TV in 'The Sweeney', 'Budgie' and 'Minder', and more recently in 'Emmerdale' and One Foot In The Grave'. But forever, the definition of Euston films 'crumpet'.

Edit Jan 2024: Sad news that Geogina Hale has died. Guardian obituary here

Georgina Hale - imdb profile