Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines (1961–66), but it was a few years later, when he narrated Roobarb (1974–76) and Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1976–77) and played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life (1975–78), that he became a household name. He starred as Martin in Ever Decreasing Circles (1984–89), and had a leading role as Hector in Monarch of the Glen (2000–05). From the late 1980s, with Kenneth Branagh as director, he performed Shakespearean roles in Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996) and As You Like It (2006), and also appeared in Branagh's Swan Song (1992), Peter's Friends (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), and In the Bleak Midwinter (1995).
Early life
Briers was born on 14 January 1934 in Raynes Park, Surrey, at that time part of the Municipal Borough of Wimbledon which later became part of the London Borough of Merton. He was the son of Joseph Benjamin Briers (1901–1980) and his second wife Morna Phyllis (1909–1992), daughter of Frederick Richardson, of the Indian Civil Service. He was the first cousin once removed of actor Terry-Thomas (Terry-Thomas was his father's cousin). His father, Joseph Briers, was the son of a stockbroker, of a family of Middlesex tenant farmers; a gregarious and popular man, he contended with a nervous disposition, and drifted between jobs, spending most of his life as a bookmaker but also working as, amongst other things, an estate agent's clerk and a factory worker for an air filter manufacturer, as well as being a gifted amateur singer who attended classes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His mother, Morna Briers, was a concert pianist and a drama and music teacher, and a member of Equity, who wished for a showbusiness career, having acted in her youth. The couple had met when Joseph Briers asked Morna to stand in for his regular pianist for a performance; by this time his first marriage had collapsed and six months later they had entered a relationship. The family occasionally received money from a wealthy relation, and Briers's maternal grandparents paid for his education, despite not being particularly well-off, and having lived in slightly reduced circumstances in India before returning to England and coming to live at Wimbledon. which he left at the age of 16 without any formal qualifications. where he met future George and Mildred actor Brian Murphy. Murphy introduced Briers, who had been interested in acting since the age of 14, to the Dramatic Society at the Borough Polytechnic Institute, now London South Bank University, where he performed in several productions.
When he left the RAF, Briers studied at RADA, which he attended from 1954 to 1956. Graduating from RADA with a silver medal,
Television career
In 1961, Briers was cast in the leading role in Marriage Lines (1961–66), with Prunella Scales playing the role of his wife. For Marriage Lines, Simon and Laura, Points of View, Present Laughter - Excerpt, Charley's Aunt and To You at Home Today, Briers was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 1966. In between the pilot and the series itself, Briers appeared in Brothers in Law (from the book by Henry Cecil) as callow barrister Roger Thursby in 1962. He was cast in this role by adaptors Frank Muir and Denis Norden, who had seen him in the West End.
His other early appearances included The Seven Faces of Jim (1961) with Jimmy Edwards, Dixon of Dock Green (1962), a production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever (1968) and the storyteller in several episodes of Jackanory (1969). In 1970, he starred in the Ben Travers farce "Rookery Nook", shown on the BBC. In the 1980s he played several Shakespearean roles, including Twelfth Night.
Briers was a subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in May 1972 and in March 1994.
In a role specifically written for him by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, Briers was cast in the lead role in The Good Life (1975–78), playing Tom Good, a draughtsman who decides, on his 40th birthday, to give up his job and try his hand at self-sufficiency, with the support of his wife Barbara, played by Felicity Kendal. Briers persuaded the producers to cast his friend Paul Eddington, a fellow council member of Equity, in the role of Jerry.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Briers had leading roles in several television shows, including Goodbye, Mr Kent (1982), a rare failure also featuring Hannah Gordon; the lead role of Martin Bryce in Ever Decreasing Circles (1984–89); and as Godfrey Spry in the BBC comedy drama If You See God, Tell Him (1993). He also starred in All in Good Faith (1985), Tales of the Unexpected as Albert Dobson (in episode 9/4 "The Verger" – 1988), and the first episode of Mr. Bean (1990) as Mr. Sprout. In 1987, he appeared as the principal villain in the Doctor Who serial Paradise Towers, a performance which was described by Radio Times writer Patrick Mulkern as Briers's "career low". In 1995, he played the character Tony Fairfax in the BBC comedy Down to Earth. In the Inspector Morse episode "Death is Now My Neighbour", he played the evil master of Lonsdale College, Sir Clixby Bream.
During the 2000s, Briers was the curmudgeonly and extravagant father Hector MacDonald in the BBC television programme Monarch of the Glen (2000–05), appearing in series 1, 2, 3 and 7. Also in the 2000s, specifically 2006, he appeared in an episode of New Tricks entitled Old Dogs playing a character called James Farlow.
Stage work
Briers spent much of his career in the theatre, including appearances in plays by Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. In 1967, one of his earliest successes was playing alongside Michael Hordern and Celia Johnson in the London production of Alan Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking.
In 1990, Briers appeared in The Wind in the Willows at the National Theatre, which earnt him a nomination for the following year's Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance.
In 2010, Briers played in the Royal National Theatre revival of Dion Boucicault's London Assurance, alongside Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw. A performance of this was broadcast live to cinemas round the world as part of the NT Live! programme. He also played the character of Captain Bluntschli, in George Bernard Shaw's play Arms and the Man.
Film
Briers made his film début in the British feature film Bottoms Up (1960).
Radio and voice work
He was a familiar voice actor. Briers narrated the animated children's TV programme Roobarb (1974). Originally shown on BBC1 just before the evening news, each five-minute cartoon was written by Grange Calveley and produced by Bob Godfrey. He was the original narrator and voice actor for all the characters in the Noddy (1975) TV series based on the Enid Blyton character,
Briers narrated numerous commercials, including adverts for the Midland Bank in which he was the voice of the company's Griffin symbol. Between 1984 and 1986 he made a series of commercials for the Ford Sierra done in a sitcom style portraying the Sierra as "one of the family".
Later career
After 1990, he appeared in Lovejoy, Inspector Morse, Midsomer Murders "Death's Shadow" as Stephen Wentworth in 1999, Doctors, New Tricks, Kingdom, and If You See God, Tell Him. Richard Briers starred as Hector in the first three series of Monarch of the Glen from 2000 to 2002 (and as a guest in series 7 in 2005), a role which saw him return to the limelight. He contributed "Sonnet 55" to the 2002 compilation album, When Love Speaks, which features famous actors and musicians interpreting Shakespeare's sonnets and play excerpts. In 2005, he appeared alongside Kevin Whately in Dad, a TV Film made by BBC Wales exploring issues of elder abuse. In 2006, he made an appearance in an episode of Extras, and portrayed the servant Adam in Kenneth Branagh's 2006 Shakespeare adaptation, As You Like It. He made a cameo appearance as a dying recluse in the 2008 Torchwood episode "A Day in the Death". In 2009 he appeared in Agatha Christie's Marple "Why didn't they ask Evans?" as Wilson.
On 17 December 2000, Briers was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Among his musical choices were "Di quella pira" from Il trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi, "I Feel A Song Coming On" by Al Jolson and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" by Louis Armstrong. His favourite piece was the Organ Concerto in F major "The Cuckoo and the Nightingale" by George Frideric Handel.
Personal life
Briers met Ann Davies while both were at Liverpool Rep. Davies was employed as a stage manager, and had acted on television and in films from the mid-1950s. Soon after meeting, he borrowed £5 from his mother, bought an engagement ring and they were married within six months.
Briers and his friend Paul Eddington shared a similar sense of humour, and knew each other before being cast in The Good Life. After Eddington was diagnosed with skin cancer, Briers accepted a role opposite him in David Storey's play Home in 1994, agreeing to take on all of the publicity interviews to allow Eddington time for his treatment. At Eddington's memorial service, Briers read both from Cymbeline and Wodehouse; he later read chapters from Eddington's autobiography on BBC Radio 4.
In 2014, BBC Radio 4 broadcast Memories of a Cad, an affectionate comedy drama by Roy Smiles about the relationship between Terry-Thomas and Briers, played by Martin Jarvis and Alistair McGowan respectively. Set in 1984 when he had suffered from Parkinson's disease for many years, Terry-Thomas is delighted by the visit to his home in Ibiza of the much younger Briers, whom he recognises from television, and who proves to be his first cousin once removed. Briers cheers him up by recalling the career the film-star has long forgotten. It was re-broadcast in 2016.
As a result of Terry-Thomas's Parkinson's, Briers became President of Parkinson's UK. He also helped to launch a Sense, The National Deafblind and Rubella Association campaign. Briers was also a non-medical patron of the TOFS (Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula Support) charity, which supports children and the families of children born unable to swallow.
Interviewed by The Daily Telegraph in 2008, Briers admitted that, while on holiday, he enjoyed being recognised, saying, "I'm gregarious by nature, so I love chatting to people. It really cheers me up."
Briers was a keen visitor of Britain's historic churches, and visited over one hundred for his book English Country Churches, which was published in 1988. Other books included a literary anthology edited with his wife Ann, A Taste of the Good Life, and a biography of Noël Coward and his theatrical legacy, Coward & Company. From his national service in the RAF, he was a supporter for a national memorial for RAF Bomber Command.
Briers was appointed OBE in 1989, and CBE in 2003.
Declining health and death
According to his daughter Lucy, he quit smoking in 2001 immediately after a routine chest X-ray suggested he would otherwise soon be in a wheelchair.
Briers died at his home in Bedford Park, London, on 17 February 2013
Briers's agent, Christopher Farrar, said: "Richard was a wonderful man, a consummate professional and an absolute joy to work alongside. Following his recent discussion of his battle with emphysema, I know he was incredibly touched by the strength of support expressed by friends and the public."
Fellow television star Penelope Keith said, "He was always courteous, always generous and always self-deprecating" adding, "He was also such a clever actor that he made you feel secure. You believed he was who he was portraying on the screen or on the stage... I just think of Richard and smile."
Writing in The Guardian, critic Michael Coveney described Briers as "always the most modest and self-deprecating of actors, and the sweetest of men," and noted: "Although he excelled in the plays of Alan Ayckbourn, and became a national figure in his television sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s, notably The Good Life, he could mine hidden depths on stage, giving notable performances in Ibsen, Chekhov and, for Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance company, Shakespeare."
Ever Increasing Wonder
On Christmas Day 2013, BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a day of tribute to Briers titled "Ever Increasing Wonder", with a variety of his BBC Radio recordings, many of them introduced by those who knew him and worked with him. Guest speakers included: Prunella Scales, Stephen Fry, Michael Chaplin, Alan Bennett, Michael Ball, Kenneth Branagh, Ed Harris as well as Briers's widow Ann Davies and their daughters.
Radio
- Brothers in Law (adaptation of the TV series)
- Doctor in the House (adaptation of the TV series)
- Marriage Lines (adaptation of the TV series)
- Largo desolato (by Václav Havel)
- What Ho! Jeeves: Joy in the Morning (adaptation of the novel by P. G. Wodehouse)
- The Wind in the Willows (by Kenneth Grahame, dramatised by Alan Bennett)
- Aled Jones's interview of Briers
Selected filmography
Film
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!Year
!Title
!Role
!Notes
|-
|1958
|Girls at Sea
|'Popeye' Lewis
|
|-
|1960
|Bottoms Up
|Colbourne
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |1961
|Murder, She Said
|'Mrs. Binster'
|
|-
|A Matter of WHO
|Jamieson
|
|-
|1962
|The Girl on the Boat
|Eustace Hignett
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |1963
|The V.I.P.s
|Met. Official
| rowspan="2" |Uncredited
|-
|Doctor in Distress
|Medical Student
|-
|1964
|The Bargee
|Tomkins
|
|-
|1965
|A Home of Your Own
|The Husband
|
|-
|1967
|Fathom
|Timothy
|
|-
|1970
|All the Way Up
|Nigel Hadfield
|
|-
|1972
|Rentadick
|Miles Gannet
|
|-
|1973
|The Three Musketeers
| rowspan="2" |King Louis XIII
| rowspan="2" |voice, uncredited
|-
|1974
|The Four Musketeers
|-
|1978
|Watership Down
|Fiver
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |1989
|A Chorus of Disapproval
|Ted Washbrook
|
|-
|Henry V
|Lieutenant Bardolph
|
|-
|1992
|Peter's Friends
|Lord Morton
|
|-
|1993
|Much Ado About Nothing
|Leonato
|
|-
|1994
|Frankenstein
|Grandfather
|
|-
|1995
|A Midwinter's Tale
|Henry Wakefield (Claudius, the Ghost, and the Player King)
|
|-
|1996
|Hamlet
|Polonius
|
|-
|1997
|Spice World
|Bishop
|
|-
|2000
|Love's Labour's Lost
|Sir Nathaniel
|
|-
|2002
|Unconditional Love
|Barry Moore
|
|-
|2003
|Peter Pan
|Smee
|
|-
|2006
|As You Like It
|Adam
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |2012
|Run for Your Wife
|Newspaper Seller
|
|-
|Cockneys vs Zombies
|Hamish
|
|}
Television
{| class="wikitable"
|+
!Year
!Title
!Role
!Notes
|-
|1958-1961
|ITV Television Playhouse
| rowspan="3" |Various
| rowspan="2" |4 episodes
|-
|1960-1963
|ITV Play of the Week
|-
|1961-1963
|Faces of Jim
|
|-
|1961
|Armchair Theatre
|Stanley Frelaine
|Episode: "Murder Club"
|-
|1961-1966
|Marriage Lines
|George Starling
|
|-
| rowspan="3" |1962
|Dixon of Dock Green
|Ken Tracy
|Episode: "A Path Through the Jungle"
|-
|BBC Sunday-Night Play
|Edward Kinnerton/Tassell
|2 episodes
|-
|Brothers in Law
|Roger Thursby
|
|-
|1966
|Theatre 625
|David Prentice
|Episode: "Simon and Laura"
|-
|1968
|BBC Play of the Month
|Sandy Tyrell
|Episode: "Hay Fever"
|-
|1969-1993
|Jackanory
|Storyteller
|3 stories
|-
| rowspan="2" |1970
|Ben Travers' Farces
|Various
|
|-
|Rookery Nook
|Gerald Popkiss
|
|-
|1971
|Birds on the Wing
|Charles Jackson
|
|-
|1974
|ITV Sunday Night Theatre
|Ronald
|Episode: "Hearty Crafty"
|-
|1974, 2005
|Roobarb and Custard
|All voices
|
|-
|1975-1978
|The Good Life
|Tom Good
|
|-
|1976-1977
|Noah and Nelly in Skylark
|Voices, narrator
|
|-
| rowspan="2" |1977
|The Other One
|Ralph Tanner
|
|-
|The Morecambe & Wise Show
|Theatre Patron
|Christmas Special
|-
|1977-1981
|Play for Today
|Mr. Smythe/Commander Jack Broone
|2 episodes
|-
|1981
|The Goodies
|Narrator
|Episode: "Snow White 2"
|-
|1982
|Goodbye, Mr Kent
|Travis Kent
|
|-
|1984-1989
|Ever Decreasing Circles
|Martin Bryce
|
|-
|1985-1988
|All in Good Faith
|Reverend Philip Lambe
|
|-
|1987
|Doctor Who
|Chief Caretaker/Kroagnon
|Serial: "Paradise Towers"
|-
|1988
|Minder
|Col. Caplan
|Episode: "An Officer and a Car Salesman"
|-
|1990
|Mr. Bean
|Mr. Sprout
|Episode: "Mr. Bean"
|-
| rowspan="2" |1993
|If You See God, Tell Him
|Godfrey Spry
|
|-
|Lovejoy
|Raymond Doncaster
|Episode: "Never Judge a Book by Its Cover"
|-
|1994
|Screen Two
|Old Arthur/George
|Episode: "Skallagrig"
|-
| rowspan="2" |1997
|Inspector Morse
|Sir Clixby Bream
|Episode: "Death is Now My Neighbour"
|-
|Mouse and Mole
|Mouse
|
|-
|1999
|Midsomer Murders
|Stephen Wentworth
|Episode: "Death's Shadow"
|-
|1999-2001
|Watership Down
|Captain Broom
|15 episodes
|-
|2000-2005
|Monarch of the Glen
|Hector MacDonald
|27 episodes
|-
|2005-2007
|Bob the Builder
|Robert
|10 episodes
|-
| rowspan="3" |2006
|New Tricks
|James Farlow
|Episode: "Old Dogs"
|-
|Doctors
|Jake Martin
|Episode: "Running Time"
|-
|Extras
|Himself
|Episode: "Chris Martin"
|-
|2008
|Torchwood
|Henry Parker
|Episode: "A Day in the Death"
|-
|2013
|Top Gear
|Sat Nav voice
|1 episode
Posthumous Release
|}
References
Bibliography
External links
- Richard Briers at the British Film Institute
- Richard Briers at BFI ScreenOnline
- Obituary in The Independent by Marcus Williamson