RIP Edward Woodward
Guest post by Jon D
Dead at the age of 79.
For many he’ll doubtless be remembered as ‘The Equalizer’. British horror movies cultists will recall him as DS Howie resisting the charms of Britt Ekland in ‘The Wicker Man’. But I’ll remember him most fondly for a role most obituarists seem to have entirely overlooked (with honorable exceptions): Nev the privatised binman in the mid-90s BBC comedy drama ‘Common As Muck’– a hidden classic of British TV that didn’t get the audience it deserved. Great ensemble acting with amazing writing. Funny, often moving, but without sentimentality. Perhaps not clicking immediately into any comfortable genre pigeonhole, it was canceled after a second series that was years in coming.
Comments
| 18 November, 2009, 11:59 am |
RIP Man with three wooden heads.
| 18 November, 2009, 2:48 pm |
Common As Muck was indeed a great series – I remember it very fondly. A fantastic cast with particularly great work from, as you say, Edward Woodward. But really, it was only the first series that was great – the second series didn’t quite hit the mark.
| 19 November, 2009, 12:57 am |
At the risk of showing my age, he’ll always be Callan, the conscience-wracked hitman, to me.
Sixties and early Seventies TV was full of ultra-cool secret agents and adventurers but Woodward brought a sense of seedy realism to the genre.
RIP
| 25 November, 2009, 1:17 am |
“At the risk of showing my age, he’ll always be Callan, the conscience-wracked hitman, to me.
Sixties and early Seventies TV was full of ultra-cool secret agents and adventurers but Woodward brought a sense of seedy realism to the genre.”
How very true. A superb, bleak look at a grim reaper.
There’s some tongue twisting gag I can’t remember which finishes ‘Well, Edward Woodward would…” (Yes, Mark, way to ruin a supposed tribute.)
He was brilliant in The Wicker Man. What a very great actor.
RIP
| 25 November, 2009, 1:41 pm |
There’s some tongue twisting gag I can’t remember which finishes ‘Well, Edward Woodward would…”
Who would carve a man with four wooden heads?
| 27 November, 2009, 12:35 pm |
‘At the risk of showing my age, he’ll always be Callan, the conscience-wracked hitman, to me.’
There’s ‘Breaker Morant’ as well:
| 5 December, 2009, 9:58 am |
Late but sincere tribute to Edward Woodward.
He played Guy Crouchback in the first and not at all Hollywood-ised version of Waugh’s “Sword of Honour” triology. Hardly a ‘natural’ as Crouchback I suppose but he carried it off.
Callan was a very fine performance and I understand his singing (singing!) voice as King Arthur in a London production of ‘Camelot’ was great surprise – though after some who played that part would have made me sound like Caruso.
Also, I think he was a decent bloke.
| 5 December, 2009, 9:39 pm |
Looking back at Callan now it was bloody brilliant! The first secret agent that came to the screen (that I had seen anyway) that had a gritty realism. Do you dangle the baddy over over the edge of a pool of sharks and let him monologue?? No…you shoot him in the back of the head with a silenced pistol while he’s on the dunny. The Callan way.
| 9 December, 2009, 2:41 pm |
‘He played Guy Crouchback in the first and not at all Hollywood-ised version of Waugh’s “Sword of Honour” triology. Hardly a ‘natural’ as Crouchback I suppose but he carried it off.’
I never knew that there was any version other than the somewhat poor series shown on C4 in 2001.
| 12 December, 2009, 2:34 pm |
Don’t forget Callum.
| 12 December, 2009, 2:34 pm |
Sorry, Callan, as I see someone has written above.
| 12 December, 2009, 2:38 pm |
Callan was the bloody hand of Le Carre’s impecable Smiley.
| 17 December, 2009, 11:07 am |
Wow, the things you miss when you live on the far side of the Atlantic. Sorry I miss Callan. The original “Wicker Man” is still one of my favorite films. And who could forget “Breaker Morant”. “Shoot straight you bastards; don’t make a mess of it”. What a great line. I think many Yanks will remember Woodward as Peta Wilson’s father in cable series “La Femme Nikita”. Whatever his age Woodward projected a quiet toughness, that was underlaid with morality.
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