Graham Crowden's resonant voice and loping gait made him a natural for eccentric doctors and teachers. We like his imposing comic presence best among colleagues who are allowed to be just as odd.
Fi1m perspective
Crowden can make a man with a professional title seem a doubtful person to consult. His height, emphatic stride and resonant voice suggest someone accustomed to being heard, while the eccentricity gives us reason to question what he says. Doctors, teachers and scientists recur in his work, and we like the uncertainty he brings to their authority.
Lindsay Anderson cast him as the History Master in if.... (1968) and continued working with him through the Mick Travis trilogy, ending with Britannia Hospital (1982), in which he plays Professor Millar, the chief surgeon. Those roles suit an actor whose size and voice can make authority seem both plausible and faintly absurd. Regular television work followed in the 1980s, giving that presence more time with recurring colleagues. The important turn for us is Andrew Davies's campus medical comedy A Very Peculiar Practice (1986).
His Dr Jock McCannon heads the university medical centre, with Peter Davison's Dr Stephen Daker providing the series with a steadier centre. We laughed at the mismatch between McCannon and Daker: sharing a profession does so little to make these doctors alike. Barbara Flynn's Dr Rose Marie and David Troughton's Dr Bob Buzzard matter just as much to that pleasure, giving Crowden other distinct comic presences to work alongside. Our reservation is the programme's occasional preference for eccentricity over giving us people to care about; even so, this is an ensemble worth spending time with.
Waiting for God (1990–94) brought wider recognition with Tom Ballard, a rebellious retirement-home resident, a change from the professionals Crowden so often played. His Lord Belfield in Out of Africa (1985) belongs to the supporting film work, but our reservations about that remote romance do not amount to a judgement on his performance. We would not make it the starting point for discovering what he does well. Begin with A Very Peculiar Practice, where Davison, Flynn and Troughton give his eccentricity good company.
Biography
Graham Crowden was a Scottish character actor known for eccentric and authoritative roles in film, television and theatre. Born in Edinburgh, he began his stage career in the 1940s with walk-on parts at Stratford-upon-Avon and later worked extensively with the Royal Court Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Laurence Olivier's National Theatre, where he played The Player King in the original production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Crowden appeared in three films directed by Lindsay Anderson: if.... (1968) as the History Master, O Lucky Man! (1973) in multiple roles, and Britannia Hospital (1982) as Professor Millar. Other notable film credits include Jabberwocky (1977), The Company of Wolves (1984), Out of Africa (1985) as Lord Belfield, and Calendar Girls (2003). On television he played Soldeed in Doctor Who (1963), Dr Jock McCannon in A Very Peculiar Practice (1986–1988) and Tom Ballard in Waiting for God (1990–1994). He died in 2010.
