Michael Angelis obit

Michael Angelis obituary

Actor who starred in the TV drama Boys from the Blackstuff and later narrated Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

He was not on the list.

The actor Michael Angelis, who has died of a heart attack aged 76, had already enjoyed some fame in sitcom before he brought heartbreak and pathos to the powerful 1980s television drama Boys from the Blackstuff, where comedy – borne out of resilience – was overshadowed by tragedy. He played Chrissie, one of five Liverpudlian former tarmac layers struggling for survival as their city faces depression in the wake of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies.

The hard-hitting series put the Liverpool writer Alan Bleasdale firmly on the map after he previously featured the characters in his 1980 TV play The Black Stuff. It began with Angelis literally in the driving seat as Chrissie and his friends – accompanied by his pet goose – set off in a van for work in Middlesbrough. At the time, there were fewer than one million unemployed, but Bleasdale foresaw what was happening in the country.

As the figure headed towards three million and more, he wrote Boys from the Blackstuff, broadcast in 1982, as five plays observing the experiences of each character. While Bernard Hill, as Yosser Hughes, made “Gizza job!” a catchphrase for many of those out of work as the drama burned into the national psyche, Chrissie was seen as the most down-to-earth of the gang, but demonstrated how his dignity was being destroyed as he struggled to put food on the family table.

In an intensely raw scene at the end of his story, when he has his gas cut off and finds himself being investigated by department of employment officials, there appears to be a truce in the rows he has with his wife (played by Julie Walters) as he tells her: “Angie, this is our life – and I wish I was dead… I had a job, Angie. It wasn’t a bad job and I was good at it. I laid the roads – motorways, lay-bys, country lanes. But I lost that job.”

After reflecting on 11 years of marriage, Angie finds her anger overspills as she remonstrates: “I’ve had enough of that ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry’. Why don’t you cry? Why don’t you scream? Why don’t you fight back, you bastards? Fight back!” Chrissie cracks, walks outside and slaughters his geese, with the blood spraying over their pet rabbit. “We’d better wash the blood off that rabbit,” he tells Angie as the couple embrace in painful resignation.

To a younger generation, Angelis’s distinctive lyrical voice was heard as the narrator of 14 series (from 1992 to 2012) of the popular animation Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends (later retitled Thomas & Friends) after taking over from the former Beatles drummer and fellow Liverpudlian Ringo Starr.  The series was launched in 1984 by the producer Britt Allcroft, who saw the potential in turning the Rev Wilbert Awdry’s Railway Series of books, and those of his son Christopher, into a children’s TV programme. She felt that young viewers should hear a single voice, the narrator, to give an impression of the books being read to them (although later on other actors were involved) and hired Starr.

Although the programmes finished after two series, they were revived in 1992 and Angelis started his run as the longest-running narrator of the animated production with a story about Percy and Henry arguing over scarves. He continued until Mark Moraghan took over in 2013.

Michael was born in London to Margaret (nee McCulla) and Evangelos Angelis, a Greek immigrant, and brought up in the Dingle area of Liverpool. He trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, and acted with repertory theatre companies in England and Scotland, notably the Liverpool Everyman.

His first significant television role came in the writer Carla Lane’s flatmates sitcom The Liver Birds, set in the city. When, for the fifth series in 1975, Sandra, played by Nerys Hughes, was joined by Elizabeth Estensen as the loud and gaudy Carol, Angelis played her brother, Lucien, an obsessive rabbit lover. “It’s me rabbits!” even became a popular catchphrase in school playgrounds.

The sitcom finished in 1979 but, for a short-lived revival in 1996, he returned as Lucien – who was then the brother of Beryl (Polly James), brought back with Hughes to reunite the comedy’s most popular female duo, who had appeared together from 1971 to 1974.

Angelis appeared in two other Lane sitcoms, I Woke Up One Morning (1985-86) as Max, one of four recovering alcoholics undergoing psychotherapy in a hospital ward, and Luv (1993-94), starring as Harold Craven, a working-class millionaire who finds that money is not everything as he showers it on his wife (Sue Johnston) and their three adopted children.

He also continued to work with Bleasdale, who regarded his performances as “real” and “truthful”. He starred in the 1985 film No Surrender as the new manager of a Liverpool club whose previous boss had maliciously booked a forthcoming event for two groups of senior citizens – one Catholic, one Protestant. On television, Angelis played Martin Niarchos, the poet friend of Michael Palin’s teacher, in the political drama GBH (1991) and a detective in Melissa (1997), the writer’s reworking of a Francis Durbridge TV murder-mystery.

His other small-screen roles included the club owner Irwin in the revenge killing mini-series The Marksman (1987); Merlin in the children’s fantasy Wail of the Banshee (1992); Arnie, alongside Russ Abbot in his first straight acting role, in September Song (1993-95); and Mickey Startup, a Liverpool club owner and criminal involved in human trafficking and sex slavery, in the first run of another revived sitcom, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, in 2002.

The actor switched effortlessly between drama and comedy, and appeared in many programmes not set in Liverpool, but he returned to the city of his childhood for Good Cop (2012) to play Robert Rocksavage, the bed-ridden father of Warren Brown’s title character seeking revenge on the murderers of a police colleague.

On the West End stage, Angelis acted one of the working-class social climbers in the Liverpool playwright Willy Russell’s comedy One for the Road (Lyric theatre, 1987).

His first marriage, in 1991, to the Coronation Street actor Helen Worth, ended in divorce 10 years later. He is survived by his second wife, Jennifar Khalastchi (nee Thomas), whom he married in 2003. His elder brother, Paul, also an actor, died in 2009.

Filmography

Film

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1978      The Black Stuff Chrissie Todd    

1979      Me You and Him               Lucien  

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square    Pealer Bell          

1980      George and Mildred        Café proprietor

1983      Pride of our Alley             Monty Banks     

1985      No Surrender     Mike     

1994      Woodcock           Cyril      

1996      Giving Tongue   Will Shaker        

2000      Thomas and the Magic Railroad Percy and James               Voice actor Workprints

2005      Thomas & Friends: Calling All Engines!    UK Narrator       

2006      Fated     Tatty     

2009      Thomas & Friends: Hero of the Rails         UK Narrator       

2010      Thomas & Friends: Misty Island Rescue

2011      Thomas & Friends: Day of the Diesels     

2012      Thomas & Friends: Blue Mountain Mystery         

First Time Loser                Father Malachie               

Television

Year       Title       Role       Notes

1972      The Scobie Man                Fire Officer         

The Thirty-Minute Theatre           Mike     

Coronation Street            Franny Slater      Episode 1226

1972, 1974          Z-Cars    Trev/Bobo           Episodes: "Week Off", "Bits An Bats"

1974      Village Hall          Terry Elliot          Season 1 Episode 1

1975–1979, 1996             The Liver Birds   Lucien/Lucian Boswell    34 episodes

1976      Rock Follies         Stavros

1977      Crown Court       Lewis Van Doren               Episode: "The Family Business: Part 1"

1977, 1978          Robin's Nest       Niarchos/Waiter               Season 1 Episode 3, Season 2 Episode 4

1979      Hazell    Scouse Benny    Episode: "Hazell Gets the Bird"

1980      Minder Nick       Series 1, Episode 10: "The Dessert Song"

1981      The Little World of Don Camillo (TV Series)           1st Salesman     

BBC2 Playhouse                Frankie Season 7, Episode 15

World's End        Danny  

1982      Wood and Walters           Chuck Sweeney/Visitor Season 1, Episode 5 and 6

The Gaffer          'Bad-Back' Barker             Episode: "Unfit as a Fiddle"

Boys from the Blackstuff               Christopher "Chrissie" Todd        

The Professionals             Len Clarke           Episode: "Lawson's Last Stand"

1983      Reilly, Ace of Spies           Artuzov                Episodes: "The Last Journey", "Shutdown"

Bergerac              Tony Morel         Episode: "Holiday Snaps"

1985      I Woke Up One Morning                Max      

Summer Season                Jack Shaughnessy            Episode: "Time Trouble"

1987      The Marksman (TV series)            Irwin     

1989      Bread    Mr Cossack         Season 5, Episode 2

The Russ Abbot Show                     Season 4, Episode 2 and 4

1990      Single Voices      Terence                Episode: "The Last Supper"

1991      G.B.H.   Martin Niarchos               

1991–2012          Thomas (the Tank Engine) & Friends        Narrator               UK version

US version2 episodes of Season 6, and 4 episodes of Season 7

1992      Wail of the Banshee        Merlin  

Between the Lines           Det Insp Kendrick             Season 1, Episode 6

Boon     Don Feldman     Episode: "Blackballed"

1993      Lovejoy                Tommy Norris    Episode: "Second Fiddle"

Luv         Harold Craven    Season 1 Episode 4

1993, 1995, 1998, 2015 Casualty               Gordon McCauley/Jez Ingrams/Ollie Yates/Stanley Momford       Season 7 Episode 24, Season 10 Episode 14, Season 13 Episode 14, Season 29 Episode 21

1993–1995          September Song               Arnie    

1994      Against All Odds                Episode: Snatched          

1995      Joseph Rueben               

1996      Whatever Happened to The Liver Birds?                 Lucien Hennessey           

1997      Common As Muck            Pete       Season 2, Episode 4 and 5

A Touch of Frost               Reggie Stansfield              Episode: "Penny for the Guy"

Melissa                 D.I Kilshaw         

Harry Enfield and Chums                               Appeared in the episode Harry Enfield and Christmas Chums alongside Thomas & Friends narrator Mark Moraghan

1998      The Jump             Donald Lewis     

2000      Holby City            Eddie Burke        Season 2 Episode 10

Heartbeat            Frank McCready              

Playing the Field               Chris/Chris Hurst              Season 3 Episode 1–6, Season 4 Episode 4

2002      Auf Wiedersehen, Pet    Mickey Startup

Always and Everyone     Frankie Hills        Episode: "A New Breed"

2003      Sweet Medicine                Liam      Season 1 Episode 5

2004      Merseybeat       Colin Nivern        Episode: "Distant Vices"

2006      Jack and the Sodor Construction Company            UK Narrator        Spinoff series of Thomas & Friends

2007      Midsomer Murders         Nicky Harding    Episode: "The Axeman Cometh"

The Bill Martin Donnelly                Episode: "Good Cop Bad Cop"

2012      Good Cop            Robert Rocksavage         

Video games

Year       Title       Role

1999      Thomas & Friends: The Great Festival Adventure               All characters

2000      Thomas & Friends: Trouble on the Tracks

2002      Thomas & Friends: Building the New Line