Coming face to face with his Spitting Image mask proved pretty traumatic for Geoffrey Palmer. He was confronted by his likeness in his role as Harry Stringer, in the Fleet Street comedy Hot Metal, on ITV on Sunday.‘I thought I had no illusions about my hooter or my jowls,’ Palmer admits, 'but those chaps do take things a little further than other people. Friends have asked if I will keep the puppet but where would I put it?’
The role he plays is described by one character in the series as 'the dullest man in Britain.' It’s a good base to start from,’ Palmer chuckles, ‘I’m not trying to be Peter Bowles in Lytton’s Diary, that’s for sure. Stringer is gentle and a bit naive. He doesn’t understand the villainy that is going on around him and believes that newspapers should always tell the tmth.’
Palmer is very pleased with Hot Metal and has particularly enjoyed working with John Gordon-Sinclair, star of the film Gregory’s Girl, who plays Bill Tytla, an eager young reporter,
‘Gordon, as he is called, is an absolutely smashing chap,’ says Palmer. ‘I worked for many years on the BBC series Butterflies with someone who I always thought was near genius — Nicholas Lyndhurst, who went on to Only Fools and Horses. I think John Gordon-Sinclair is Glasgow’s answer to Nicholas Lyndhurst.
One of Palmer’s other roles was as the manic major in Fairly Secret Army, on Channel Four — a follow-on from his part as the brother-in-law in BBC’s The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin. But he is probably best loved as the confused Ben, engulfed in the problems caused by teenage sons and a daydreaming wife in Butterflies.
‘There were things in the character, Ben, that I recognised in me. When Ria [played by Wendy Craig] wanted reassurance, Ben found it very hard to sweep her into his arms and show spontaneous emotion. I understood that. Every now and then my wife, Sally, says, “Do I look nice?” I say, “Do you want me to tell you the truth?” It’s that game of feminine vanity that I’m not very good at playing.’
Odd coves, women, I expected him to add.
Thanks to Maree Wilson for sending this article which appeared in the March 8-14, 1986 issue of TV Times.