Roger Hammond obit

Roger Hammond obituary

This article is more than 12 years old

Actor known for his roles as clergymen, favourite uncles and tragic-comic characters

 He was not on the list.

There is a great tradition in the rotundity of actors, and Roger Hammond, who has died aged 76 of cancer, stands proudly in a line stretching from Francis L Sullivan and Willoughby Goddard through to Roy Kinnear, Desmond Barrit and Richard Griffiths, though he was probably more malleably benevolent on stage than any of them.

He reeked of kindness, consideration and imperturbability, with a pleasant countenance and a beautiful, soft voice, qualities ideal for unimpeachable clergymen, favourite uncles and tragic-comic characters such as Waffles in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (whom he played in a 1991 BBC TV film, with David Warner and Ian Holm), a man whose wife left him for another man on his wedding day but who has remained faithful to her and forgiving ever since.

Hammond grew up in Stockport, Lancashire. His chartered accountant father was managing director of his own family firm, RP Lawson & Sons, yarn dyers, bleachers and mercerisers in the cotton mill industry. He attended King's Drive preparatory school and Stockport grammar before going on to Bryanston school, Dorset (1950-54), where he featured in school plays, appeared on Children's Hour on BBC radio and took a holiday job with the director David Scase at the Library Theatre in Manchester.

Hammond always claimed that he won a place in 1955 at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he read English, later changing to archaeology and anthropology, through reciting The Mouse Who Wanted the Moon at the BBC. As for so many of his generation, his undergraduate theatre days made him friends and colleagues for life; he was at the centre of a group which included Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Trevor Nunn, Miriam Margolyes, Margaret Drabble, Richard Cottrell, John Tydeman, Corin Redgrave and Clive Swift.

With most of them, he acted in classical drama at the Marlowe Society under the supervision of George Rylands, but also appeared in a fin-de-siècle musical version of Love's Labour's Lost that featured a dozen future professional luminaries; anyone who saw it still celebrates Hammond's song and dance number, with balloons, Pretty Girl, written by Redgrave and Swift. This show, as well as a production of Caesar and Cleopatra, was also seen at the Lyric, Hammersmith. On graduating, he went to Rada to complete his training alongside Martin Jarvis, Gemma Jones, Sarah Badel, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Helen Weir, whom he married in 1968, and Mike Leigh, who directed him in a production of Pinter's The Caretaker. Then he spent some time in rep in Ipswich and made his London debut with Caryl Jenner's Unicorn Theatre at the Arts in 1963.

Although he had good roles in both Jean Anouilh's Poor Bitos – he was a figure of appalled comic outrage alongside Donald Pleasence and Jarvis – in the West End in 1964, and as Andrei in Three Sisters, with Mia Farrow, directed by Robin Phillips at Greenwich in 1974, he was consistently busy in television.

He became a familiar face in The Avengers, The Onedin Line, The Sweeney, Minder, Doctor Who, as well as gracing countless memorable television dramas: Edna, the Inebriate Woman (1971), The Glittering Prizes (1976), starring Tom Conti, Edward and Mrs Simpson (1978), in which he played Sir Harold Nicolson, John Schlesinger's film of Alan Bennett's An Englishman Abroad (1983), and a two-part film by Christine Edzard of Little Dorrit (1988) with his friends Jacobi and Margolyes.

By now he had fulfilled both his promise and his waistline, and he was a natural in the 1990s for authority figures such as Mr Lebeau in Edzard's update of As You Like It, with Edward Fox, Cyril Cusack and Griff Rhys Jones; the pompous, periwigged physician Baker in Alan Bennett's The Madness of George III (on stage at the National Theatre, and in the subsequent film); and an obsequious archbishop in Richard Loncraine's 1930s Mosleyite fascist Richard III (starring McKellen and based on the brilliant NT production by Richard Eyre).

In Channel 4's satirical series Drop the Dead Donkey, he was a media mogul, Sir Royston Merchant, unseen until the final show in 1998, sharing initials with both Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell, and his films in the last decade included Mike Barker's update of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, A Good Woman (he appeared in the play at the Haymarket in 2002 with Vanessa Redgrave and her daughter, Joely Richardson); Frank Coraci's remake of Around the World in 80 Days (2004), with Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent and Jackie Chan; and Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010), as another incompetent doctor. He enjoyed an affinity with the work of Michael Frayn, playing an old-school journalist – dead at his desk for hours before anyone noticed – in a radio adaptation (2005) of Frayn's great Fleet Street novel, Towards the End of the Morning, as well as appearing in a revival of Donkey's Years (1975) and in Frayn's adaptation of Yuri Trofimov's Exchange at the Vaudeville (1990), in which, his friend and fellow cast member Jarvis said, he was light and graceful on his feet – "a twinkle-toed, ballet-dancing bear".

Hammond additionally contributed to some audio books on tape, appearing in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, and The Tempest

Although he and Helen divorced in 1975, they remained close friends. He is survived by her, their son Daniel, and an older brother, Michael, and younger sister, Hilary.

 John Roger Hammond, actor, born 21 March 1936; died 8 November 2012.

Film and television credits

Bachelor of Hearts (1958) .... Undergraduate pushing the car (uncredited)

Game for Three Losers (1965) .... Peter Fletcher

The Avengers (1967, TV series) - "Return of the Cybernauts" - Prof Russell

Lock Up Your Daughters (1969) .... Johnsonian Figure

A Touch of Love (1969) .... Mike

Catweazle (1970, TV Series) .... Boris

Play for Today (1971, Episode: "Edna, the Inebriate Woman") .... Victor, Helper at 'Jesus Saves'

The Pied Piper (1972) .... Burger

Sutherland's Law (1972, TV Movie) .... Sheriff

Adult Fun (1972) .... Mr. Bryant

Because of the Cats (1973) .... Maris

Royal Flash (1975) .... Master

When the Boat Comes In (1976, Episode: "A Land Fit for Heroes and Idiots") .... Maj. Reginald Leslie Pinner

The Duchess of Duke Street (1976, TV Series) .... Prince of Wales

Queen Kong (1976) .... Woolf

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1976 TV film) .... Lecomu

Edward and Mrs. Simpson (1978, TV Mini-Series) .... Sir Harold Nicolson

The Good Soldier (1981, TV film) .... Grand Duke

An Englishman Abroad (1983, TV film) .... Shoe shop assistant[11]

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984, Episode: "The Red-Headed League") .... Jabez Wilson

Amy (1984, TV film) .... Sir Sefton Brancker

Minder (1984, Episode: "Get Daley!") .... Albert Wendell

Morons from Outer Space (1985) .... Soundman

Nemesis (Miss Marple) (1986) ....Broadribb, solicitor

Foreign Body (1986) .... Pub landlord

Farrington of the F.O. (1986-1987, TV Series) .... Josef / Jose Gonzales

Little Dorrit (1987) .... Mr. Meagles

Madame Sousatzka (1988) .... Lefranc

The Fool (1990) .... Augustus Roddick

Screen Two (1990, Episode: "Fellow Traveller") .... Tudor Hamilton

Performance (1991, Episode: "Uncle Vanya") .... Waffles

Edward II (1991) .... Bishop

A Dangerous Man: Lawrence after Arabia (1992, TV Movie) .... Valence

Orlando (1992) .... Swift

As You Like It (1992) .... Mr. Lebeau

The Madness of King George (1994) .... Baker

Richard III (1995) .... Archbishop

Screen Two (1995, Episode: "Persuasion") .... Mr. Musgrove

The Ghostbusters of East Finchley (1995) .... Mr. Gleeson

The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1996) .... Dr. Trewynne

The Secret Agent (1996) .... Mr. Michaelis

Sixth Happiness (1997) .... Father Ferre

Solomon (1997) .... Zadok

Monk Dawson (1998) .... Fr Julian

The Tichborne Claimant (1998) .... Cubitt

Drop The Dead Donkey (1998, TV Series) .... Sir Roysten Merchant

The Clandestine Marriage (1999) .... Traverse

A Christmas Carol (1999, TV Movie) .... Second Broker

The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka: The Mystery of Chopin (1999) .... Schwabe

Arabian Nights (2000) .... Jerome Gribben

Up at the Villa (2000) .... Colin Mackenzie

Shrink (2000, Short) .... Claus

Bedazzled (2000) .... Play Actor

Victoria & Albert (2001, TV Movie) .... Duke of Coburg

Redemption Road (2001) .... Old Man

Possession (2002) .... Professor Spear

Vacuums (2002) .... DJ Johnson

Around the World in 80 Days (2004) .... Lord Rhodes

A Good Woman (2004) .... Cecil

Rome (2005, TV Series) .... Chief Augur

Princes in the Tower (2005, TV Movie) .... Bishop de Cambrai

Keeping Mum (2006) .... Judge

Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj (2007) .... Camford Dean

Quest for a Heart (2007) .... Elder (English version, voice)

The King's Speech (2010) .... Dr. Blandine Bentham (final film role)

 

Partial stage credits

Camino Real ... Baron de Charlus

A Month in the Country ... Arkady Srgeitch Islaev

Deutsches Haus ... Griben

Love's Labours ... Charles

Three Sisters ... Andrey

Caesar and Cleopatra ... Pothinus

Arsenic and Old Lace ... Dr. Einstein

Luther ... Eck

I, John Brown ... Jack McGrew

Salad Days ... Timothy's Father / Butterfly Catcher

The Corn is Green ... The Squire

The Public Eye ... Charles Sidley

Serjeant Musgrave's Dance ... The Mayor

All in Good Time ... Leslie Piper

Lady Windermere's Fan ... Dumby

The Importance of Being Earnest ... Rev. Dr. Chasuble

The Madness of King George ... Baker

'Tis Pity She's a Whore ... Donado

The Seagull ... Shamraev

Donkeys' Years ... Tate

Poor Bitos ... Mirabeau

The Cherry Orchard ... Pishchik

Other projects, contributions

When Love Speaks (2002, EMI Classics) – Shakespeare's "Sonnet 119" ("What potions have I drunk of siren tears")

Fable 2 Chieftain of Knothole Island – Lionhead Studios

The Screwtape Letters (2009, Focus on the Family Radio Theatre) - Toadpipe