The Whoniverse Round-Up November 2020 A Sad Farewell

 

November 2020 

 

This month is dedicated to two great actors who have graced our screens from the 70s and 80s and continued to entertain us until their sad passing this month. RIP John and Geoffrey. 

 

John Sessions 

Born on January 11th 1953 in Largs, Ayrshire, Scotland. 

John Sessions dominated a lot of the television programmes I'd watch in the 80s, in much the same way as perhaps Geoffrey Palmer did during the early 70s and 80s. I used to love Whose Line Is It Anyway? where a group of comedians would come up with quick witted comedy sketches just from a random series of words from audience as well as the host. One of the best programmes that came out of the 80s and only wish it would return. (Bit like Mock of the Week, only funnier). 

Although comedy is the first thing that springs to mind with Sessions, he was also a serious actor playing roles in The Bounty, Porterhouse Blue, Father Brown, Skins, Oliver Twist, Judge John Deed, and Filth to name but a few. 

He also lent his voice to characters for television and for audio, including From Russia with Love: The Radio Play video as the General and Rene Mathis. He was also the voice of Gus for the Doctor Who episode Mummy on the Orient Express in 2014 and in 2015 provided the voice for George Wilson in the Big Finish production of Torchwood: The Conspiracy. 

He died on 2nd November, 2020 from a heart condition. He was only 67. 

 

Geoffrey Palmer, OBE 

Born on 4^th June 1927 in London. He died on 5th November, 2020. He was 93. 

Growing up as I did, through the 70s and 80s, it was no surprise that situation comedies dominated our early evening viewing. My family loved watching Butterflies with Wendy Craig, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Andrew Hall and Geoffrey Palmer. Palmer played the grumpy Dad and husband to Wendy Craig's often dippy character Ria. I don't think I ever saw Ben (Geoffrey's character) smile. But then in many of the comedy character roles, Geoffrey rarely ever did, except for some far later episodes of As Time Goes By which he played Lionel Hardcastle, alongside Dame Judy Dench's Jean Pargeter. 

Yet it wasn't just comedies such as those above, or the single role appearances that Palmer was remembered for, or even as the voice over for a European Car manufacturer advert, or more recently, in Paddington in 2014, but his Sci-Fi role in Classic Doctor Who between 1970 and 1972 and more recently in the NuWho era of 2007. 

In Doctor Who and the Silurians in 1970 he played Permanent Under Secretary Masters in episode 2 - 3, which was later shortened to Masters for episodes 4 - 6. In the first episode of The Mutants in 1972 he played the Administrator. Thirty-seven years later, he was to return to Doctor Who for the Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned, playing Captain Hardaker, and although this role was short, and movement was limited to steering the ship and shooting Midshipman Frame, Palmer always played lugubrious characters, and oddly enough, they're characters you always remember.