Geoffrey Palmer (actor)

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer^[1] (4 June 1927 – 5 November 2020) was an English actor. His roles in British television sitcoms include Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983) and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By (1992–2005).

His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), Mrs Brown (1997), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Paddington (2014). He also made guest appearances in television series such as The Avengers, Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, Bergerac and Blackadder.

Geoffrey Dyson Palmer was born on 4 June 1927 in North Finchley, Middlesex.^[2] He was the son of Frederick Charles Palmer, who was a chartered surveyor, and Norah Gwendolen (née Robins).^[3] He attended Highgate School from September 1939 to December 1945.^[4] He served as a corporal instructor in small arms and field training in the Royal Marines during his national service from 1946 to 1948, following which he briefly worked as an unpaid trainee assistant stage manager.^[1]

Palmer's early television appearances included multiple roles in episodes of The Army Game (Granada Television), two episodes of The Baron and as a property agent in Cathy Come Home (1966). After a major break in John Osborne's West of Suez at the Royal Court with Ralph Richardson, he acted in major productions at the Royal Court and for the National Theatre Company and was directed by Laurence Olivier in J. B. Priestley's Eden End. Palmer found the play so dull, however, that he was deterred from a stage career.^[5]

Two BBC sitcom roles brought him attention in the 1970s: the hapless brother-in-law of Reggie Perrin in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), and the phlegmatic dentist Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983).^[2]

In 1978, Palmer appeared as organized crimelord Simon Sinclair in London Weekend Television's hard-hitting police drama The Professionals, the episode entitled "Where the Jungle Ends".

Palmer played Doctor Price in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Kipper and the Corpse" (1979), determined to have breakfast amidst the confusion caused by the death of a guest and Fawlty's inept way of handling the emergency.^[2] In 1986, Palmer appeared as Donald Fairchild in the first series of an ITV sitcom, Executive Stress, alongside Penelope Keith. He later left, and was replaced by Peter Bowles.^[2]

Palmer later starred opposite Judi Dench for over a decade in another BBC sitcom, As Time Goes By (1992–2005). In 1997, he also appeared with Dench in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, in which he portrayed Admiral Roebuck to Dench's M, and Mrs Brown, playing Sir Henry Ponsonby to Dench's Queen Victoria.

Palmer's voice-over skills led to frequent work in commercials. Campaigns he was involved with include the 'Slam in the Lamb' ads for the Meat & Livestock Commission and the Audi commercials in which he was heard using the phrase "Vorsprung durch Technik". As a narrator, he worked on the BBC series' Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Holidays, with Prunella Scales on Looking for Victoria in 2003, as well as narrating the audiobook version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, released in 2005 as a podcast by Penguin Books.^[6] He narrated the documentary series Little England, and he continued to appear in productions written by Reggie Perrin creator David Nobbs, the last of these being the radio comedy The Maltby Collection broadcast from 2007.

In the 2006 DVD series The Compleat Angler, Palmer partnered Rae Borras in a series of episodes based on Izaak Walton's 1653 The Compleat Angler. In 2007, he recorded The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith as an online audiobook. In December 2007, Palmer appeared in the role of the Captain in "Voyage of the Damned", the Christmas special episode of the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who;^[7] Palmer previously appeared in the classic era of the show in the Third Doctor serials Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970) (as Masters) and The Mutants (1972) (as the Administrator). In March 2009, he joined in a sketch with the two double acts Armstrong and Miller and Mitchell and Webb for Comic Relief. In 2011, he played the reactionary father-in-law of the eponymous clergyman of Rev. in its Christmas episode.

Palmer married Sally Green in 1963.^[8] They had a daughter, Harriet, and a son, Charles, a television director.^[9] Palmer was a longtime resident of Lee Common in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire,^[10] and enjoyed fly fishing in his spare time.^[1][8] At the time of his death, he resided in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.^[2][11]

Palmer died peacefully at his home on 5 November 2020, aged 93.^{[2][12][13][14]}

In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama.^[15] A drawing of Palmer by Stuart Pearson Wright is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.^[16]

• Geoffrey Palmer at IMDb
• Geoffrey Palmer at the BFI's Screenonline
• Geoffrey Palmer discography at Discogs
• Selected performances in Theatre Archive University of Bristol
• Geoffrey Palmer at British Comedy Guide
• Portraits of Geoffrey Palmer at the National Portrait Gallery, London