Biography

He revealed in a newspaper interview in January 2013 that he had been diagnosed with emphysema in 2007 and had smoked approximately half a million cigarettes before quitting. According to his daughter Lucy, he quit instantly in 2001 after a routine chest X-ray showed that if he didn't, he would soon be in a wheelchair.

Grew up in a flat above a cinema.

He studied electrical engineering, but gave it up to become a file clerk, a job he continued in the RAF when he was called up to do his national service. While serving at RAF Northwood in Hertfordshire, he became involved in the drama society at London's Borough Polytechnic Institute (now the South Bank University).

Did his national service in the RAF.

He appeared in nine films directed by his close friend Kenneth Branagh: Henry V (1989), Peter's Friends (1992), Swan Song (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), A Midwinter's Tale (1995), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000) and As You Like It (2006).

People still see me in Good Life (The Good Life (1975)) repeats. I was 25 years younger then. Now I'm an old git with white hair.

I'm rather low-brow in my film tastes: I love Superman (1978) and Jack Nicholson. Jack's very theatrical and doesn't give a damn how much he overplays, he's an extraordinary performer. In a way one learns from him, but he's so brave, he just does it. He doesn't mumble, he gives a performance.

I was trained as an actor and was taught voice projection and diction, but the fashion nowadays is to speak badly and make terrible noises from the back of your throat.

I don't watch very much on TV, partly because I'm old. I want very little action. I'm one of those awfully boring people who likes David Attenborough and the news.

They simply don't write funny stuff any more. A lot of it now is depressing. Or violent. Or both.