John Moffatt obit

John Moffatt obituary

This article is more than 11 years old

Classical actor who graced the stage with decorum and stillness 

He wasn't on the list.

Although perhaps best known as Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's moustache-twirling detective, on BBC radio, John Moffatt, who has died aged 89, was a devastatingly clinical and classical stage actor of irreproachable taste and valour. He seemed something of a throwback, but there are very few today who could rival his armour-plated technique, his almost uncanny empathy with comic style ranging from the Restoration to Rattigan – his trademark stillness and decorum on stage was at odds with false notions of flounce and frilliness – or his incisive articulation.

He was a beacon in his profession, greatly admired and loved, not least because he had worked with almost everyone of note in the business, from his idols Noël Coward and John Gielgud, to his best friends Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen and Joan Plowright, but chiefly because he was so funny and modest about his own contribution.

In his early rep days at the Oxford Playhouse, he played the schoolteacher Kulygin in Chekhov's Three Sisters, a man who shaves off his moustache between the third and fourth acts. One night, he forgot to do so, and saw Dench turning beetroot in anticipation of her line, "You've shaved off your moustache." He did a quick twirl to look at the trees and whipped off the offending lip hair just in time. Dench denies this. "You've shaved off your moustache," she claims she said, followed by, "and grown it back…" (Moffatt twirls and rips off the tache) "… and shaved it off again!"

There was similar merry onstage mayhem at the Old Vic in 1959 when Moffatt, Dench, McCowen, Smith, Moyra Fraser and Joss Ackland formed an unshakeable alliance in productions of As You Like It and The Merry Wives of Windsor; they continued their friendship with a weekly ritual of Sunday lunches for many years.

Moffatt was born in Badby, Northamptonshire, the elder son of royal household workers, Ernest Moffatt and his wife, Letitia. John never spoke about it – and he kept a diary all his life – but his parents were employed first at Queen Alexandra's Marlborough House (Ernest as a wine waiter, Letitia as a housemaid) and later at Sandringham.

 The family lived in Mortlake, south-west London. Moffatt attended East Sheen county school and took drama lessons at Toynbee Hall in the East End while working as a bank clerk in the City. He was excused a call-up in the second world war by virtue of his children's theatre work, and he made his professional debut at the Perth Rep in 1945, forging a friendship there with McCowen, with whom he appeared in five plays. They shared a lifelong enthusiasm for the comedians Max Miller, Max Wall and Jack Benny, and their favourite show was the 1979 Broadway revue Sugar Babies starring Mickey Rooney and . These predilections fit with the effortless sense of style and comic finesse Moffatt exuded in every role.

Five years in rep at Perth, Oxford, Windsor and Bristol were followed by a London debut in 1950 at the Lyric, Hammersmith, in Molière's Tartuffe, and a stint in revue at the Watergate. He played minor roles in a Gielgud Shakespeare season at the Phoenix in 1951, and the foreign secretary in Shaw's The Apple Cart, with Coward, at the Haymarket; he actually uttered the line, when Coward's character threatened abdication: "You can't upset the apple cart like this."

His breakthrough came in 1956 at the Royal Court, where he appeared in Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan with Peggy Ashcroft and in Nigel Dennis's Cards of Identity with Plowright, John Osborne, Robert Stephens and Alan Bates. He then helped repair a box-office deficit in Wycherley's The Country Wife, which transferred from the Court to the Adelphi; he played Sparkish, said Kenneth Tynan, "in a complacent ecstasy that never brims over into silliness".

 After his New York debut with The Country Wife, he joined that last hurrah at the Old Vic in 1959. Ten years later, with the National Theatre company, he was a definitive Fainall in Congreve's The Way of the World, a svelte and deadly cardinal in Webster's The White Devil and a serpentine Judge Brack in Hedda Gabler, with Smith, directed by Ingmar Bergman.

Switching tack yet again, he was the anchor of a marvellous Coward show in 1972 at the Mermaid, Cowardy Custard, devised by Gerard Frow, Alan Strachan and Wendy Toye (who also directed). At the Theatre Royal, York, in 1974, he was Widow Twankey in Aladdin; during his career he wrote, and appeared in, half a dozen traditional panto scripts.

His last decade or so on the London stage included Ben Travers's The Bed Before Yesterday (1975), playing a meek, insufficient husband to a suddenly rampaging Plowright; a lovely, acidulous theatre producer in The Play's the Thing (Ferenc Molnár via PG Wodehouse) at Greenwich in 1979; and another foreign office official in Ronald Harwood's Interpreters (1985), in which he umpired a tryst between Smith and Edward Fox.

His last significant West End appearance was in 1984 as Witwoud, making a purse out of a sow's ear, in William Gaskill's great Chichester festival production – with Smith and Plowright – of The Way of the World. Michael Billington commended a dazzling piece of high camp eager to conceal provincial origins. "Moffatty Woffatty," Smith called him, affectionately, sotto voce, as they entered the stage together, swotting imaginary midges, a private ritual.

He bowed out at the Wyndham's in 1988 as George Bernard Shaw in Peter Luke's Married Love, a tedious and sententious biography of Marie Stopes (directed by Plowright) but he rallied with a verse compilation a few years later, Fond and Familiar, performed with Dench and her husband, Michael Williams. After Williams's death, Dench and Moffatt performed the piece with Geoffrey Palmer.

Moffatt is survived by his sister, Marjorie.

 

Actor

Death at Broadcasting House

Video

Julian Caird (voice)

1996

 

Maigret (1992)

Maigret

7.7

TV Series

Comeliau

M. Comeliau

M. Coméliau

1992–1993

5 episodes

 

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992)

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales

7.9

TV Series

Alonzo (voice)

1992

1 episode

 

Screen Two (1984)

Screen Two

6.4

TV Series

Mr. Evernden

1991

1 episode

 

A Tale of Two Cities (1989)

A Tale of Two Cities

7.1

TV Mini Series

Judge

1989

1 episode

 

Menace Unseen (1988)

Menace Unseen

7.3

TV Mini Series

Mr. Stonefield

1988

2 episodes

 

Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, and Vanessa Redgrave in Prick Up Your Ears (1987)

Prick Up Your Ears

7.1

Wigmaker

1987

 

Still Crazy Like a Fox (1987)

Still Crazy Like a Fox

6.5

TV Movie

Milton

1987

 

Artists and Models (1986)

Artists and Models

8.2

TV Series

(voice)

1986

1 episode

 

Honour, Profit & Pleasure (1985)

Honour, Profit & Pleasure

6.6

TV Movie

Steele

1985

 

Michael Gough in The Cantor of St Thomas's (1984)

The Cantor of St Thomas's

6.5

TV Movie

(voice)

1984

 

Joan Hickson in Miss Marple: The Body in the Library (1984)

Miss Marple: The Body in the Library

7.6

TV Mini Series

Edwards

1984

2 episodes

 

All the World's a Stage (1984)

All the World's a Stage

6.8

TV Mini Series

Extracts from The Versailles Impromptu; The Critique of the School for Wives; Tartuffe

1984

1 episode

 

A Night on the Town

6.6

TV Movie

1983

 

The Cleopatras (1983)

The Cleopatras

7.1

TV Mini Series

Quintus Dellius

1983

1 episode

 

Don Henderson, Diane Keen, Peter Sallis, and Don Warrington in Crown Court (1972)

Crown Court

7.3

TV Series

Judge Ropner

His Honour Judge Ropner

Adam Honeycombe

1975–1982

18 episodes

 

Britannia Hospital (1982)

Britannia Hospital

6.2

Greville Figg: Administration

1982

 

George Cole in Minder (1979)

Minder

7.8

TV Series

Freddie Baker

1982

1 episode

 

Ian Richardson, Michael Elphick, and Rula Lenska in Private Schulz (1981)

Private Schulz

7.9

TV Series

Kaltenbrunner

1981

1 episode

 

The Other 'Arf (1980)

The Other 'Arf

6.4

TV Series

Vicar

1981

1 episode

 

Love in a Cold Climate (1980)

Love in a Cold Climate

7.6

TV Mini Series

Lord Merlin

1980

7 episodes

 

A Question of Faith (1979)

A Question of Faith

5.6

The Voice

1979

 

S.O.S. Titanic (1979)

S.O.S. Titanic

6.2

TV Movie

Benjamin Guggenheim

1979

 

Alan Bennett in The Old Crowd (1979)

The Old Crowd

6.4

TV Movie

George

1979

 

ITV Playhouse (1967)

ITV Playhouse

6.8

TV Series

Superintendent

1978

1 episode

 

The Ballad of Salomon Pavey

TV Movie

Hunnis

1977

 

BBC Play of the Month (1965)

BBC Play of the Month

6.9

TV Series

Andrew Mealmaker

Jackie Jackson

Capt. Brazen ...

1972–1975

4 episodes

 

Romance with a Double Bass (1975)

Romance with a Double Bass

7.2

Short

Major Domo

1975

 

Cathleen Nesbitt, Angharad Rees, and Billie Whitelaw in Ten from the Twenties (1975)

Ten from the Twenties

TV Series

Spencer Russell

1975

1 episode

 

The Way of the World

TV Movie

Witwound

1975

 

Galileo (1975)

Galileo

6.6

Philosopher

1975

 

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Murder on the Orient Express

7.2

Chief Attendant

1974

 

Patrick Stewart, Barry Foster, Gayle Hunnicutt, Charles Kay, and Laurence Naismith in Fall of Eagles (1974)

Fall of Eagles

8.1

TV Mini Series

Aehrenthal

1974

1 episode

 

The Cricket Match

TV Movie

Bobby Southcott

1973

 

Sporting Scenes (1973)

Sporting Scenes

TV Series

Bobby Southcott

1973

1 episode

 

Gene Barry, Barry Morse, and Catherine Schell in The Adventurer (1972)

The Adventurer

6.9

TV Series

Armand

1973

1 episode

 

Lady Caroline Lamb (1972)

Lady Caroline Lamb

5.4

Murray

1972

 

Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Paul Scofield, and Anna Calder-Marshall in ITV Saturday Night Theatre (1969)

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

6.3

TV Series

Sir Andrew Aguecheek

1970

1 episode

 

Julius Caesar (1970)

Julius Caesar

6.1

Popilius Lena

1970

 

Judge Dee (1969)

Judge Dee

8.4

TV Series

Teng Kan

1969

1 episode

 

Take It or Leave It

TV Series

Extracts read by (voice)

1964–1968

42 episodes

 

Susan Hampshire in Vanity Fair (1967)

Vanity Fair

7.5

TV Mini Series

Jos Sedley

1967

4 episodes

 

John Betjeman in Contrasts (1967)

Contrasts

TV Series

Reader

1967

1 episode

 

Theatre 625 (1964)

Theatre 625

7.5

TV Series

Investigator

1967

1 episode

 

The Wednesday Play (1964)

The Wednesday Play

7.5

TV Series

Edward Cosgrove

Mr. Stotman

1965–1967

2 episodes

 

Ian Holm, Denholm Elliott, Robert Eddison, Freddie Jones, and Patrick Mower in Mystery and Imagination (1966)

Mystery and Imagination

7.6

TV Series

Marquis d'Harmonville

Gray

1966

2 episodes

 

The Man in Room 17 (1965)

The Man in Room 17

7.4

TV Series

Ambassador Don Diego Porto

1965

1 episode

 

ITV Play of the Week (1955)

ITV Play of the Week

6.9

TV Series

William Pitt

Fred Johnson

1963–1964

2 episodes

 

Anthony Bate, Tenniel Evans, Mary Kenton, Hugh Manning, and David Sumner in The Sullavan Brothers (1964)

The Sullavan Brothers

6.2

TV Series

Prof. Richard Grainger

1964

1 episode

 

The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling (1963)

The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling

7.7

TV Series

Mr. Lone

1964

1 episode

 

John Barrie and William Gaunt in Sergeant Cork (1963)

Sergeant Cork

8.0

TV Series

Aubrey Drummond

1964

1 episode

 

Tom Jones (1963)

Tom Jones

6.4

Square

1963

 

Call Oxbridge 2000

TV Series

Cyril Pilgrim

1962

1 episode

 

Bob Dylan, David Warner, Ursula Howells, Reg Lye, and Maureen Pryor in The Madhouse on Castle Street (1963)

BBC Sunday-Night Play

8.8

TV Series

Spenser Boyd

1962

1 episode

 

Sir Francis Drake (1961)

Sir Francis Drake

7.1

TV Series

Spanish Captain

1961

1 episode

 

Galileo

TV Movie

Curator

1961

 

World Theatre (1959)

World Theatre

7.5

TV Mini Series

Joseph Surface

Casca

1959

2 episodes

 

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950)

BBC Sunday-Night Theatre

7.7

TV Series

Stranger

Malvolio

Eddie Fuseli ...

1953–1959

4 episodes

 

Saturday Playhouse (1958)

Saturday Playhouse

TV Series

Sgt. Mallet

1958

1 episode

 

John Moffatt and Peter Wyngarde in The Adventures of Ben Gunn (1958)

The Adventures of Ben Gunn

9.0

TV Series

Ben Gunn

1958

6 episodes

 

Tomorrow Mr. Tompion! And About Time Too!

TV Movie

Professor Hooke

1958

 

Television World Theatre (1957)

Television World Theatre

TV Series

Brush

1958

1 episode

 

The Silent Enemy (1958)

The Silent Enemy

6.6

Diving Volunteer

1958

 

Loser Takes All (1956)

Loser Takes All

5.1

Barman (uncredited)

1956

 

Nom-de-Plume

TV Series

Sergei Pavlovitch

M. Legouve

Count Bernstorff

1956

3 episodes

 

Wednesday Theatre

TV Series

Zhukov

1953

1 episode

 

Soundtrack

Susan Hampshire in Vanity Fair (1967)

Vanity Fair

7.5

TV Mini Series

performer: "Sally in Our Alley" (uncredited)

1967

1 episode