Mark Williams can make the struggle to finish a sentence funnier than the line itself. We value the care he gives awkward characters, even when the catchphrase has been repeated once too often.
Fi1m perspective
In The Fast Show (1994), a line can falter and still give Mark Williams everything he needs. The incomplete phrase and uncertain delivery make the speaker funny before there is much of a joke to repeat. We laughed at the mumbling because the embarrassment remained recognisable beneath the exaggeration. Williams is worth watching for that attention to people who cannot quite get their words out.
Williams was a writer as well as a performer on the series, alongside co-star and writer Paul Whitehouse. He, John Thomson and Caroline Aherne give the short sketches more feeling than their repeated phrases might suggest. A hesitation can tell us enough about a character to make a lengthy introduction unnecessary. The brevity asks the actors to establish somebody quickly, and Williams is good at it.
The film work took him to 101 Dalmatians (1996), playing Horace alongside Hugh Laurie, and then to Arthur Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). He played Arthur across seven films, with Julie Walters as Molly Weasley. The move took him from a programme built around brevity into sustained work with a recurring screen family.
The Fast Show also makes the limitation clear: repetition sometimes lets recognition stand in for a new joke. Williams cannot keep that enjoyable indefinitely, however carefully he plays the character. But treating him merely as a catchphrase performer misses why the better sketches work. We return for the uncertain delivery and the effort of speaking, not simply to hear a familiar line again.
Brian Williams in Doctor Who (2012) continued the run of fathers; the title role in Father Brown (2013) put him at the centre of a long-running series. The later television work makes it harder to file him away as a sketch comedian. Start with The Fast Show, and pay attention to what happens before the familiar line arrives.
Biography
Mark Williams is an English actor, comedian, presenter and screenwriter. He began his career in small-scale touring theatre and worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Williams first achieved widespread recognition as one of the central performers and a writer on the BBC sketch show The Fast Show (1994). His film roles include Horace in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and Arthur Weasley in seven of the Harry Potter films, beginning with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). He has appeared in Stardust (2007), as Brian Williams in Doctor Who, and as the title character in the BBC series Father Brown since 2013.
