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There are more photos from the programme below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

Rumpole of the Bailey:Rumpole's Last Case by John Mortimer - Ken

- prison guard number two!

Another very small part in an episode of the wonderful 'Rumpole of the Bailey' starring Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole. I played Ken, a prison warder at the Old Bailey. Only one scene, and that only there to advance the plot in a minor way, but it was with the great man himself so I wasn't complaining and it kept the wolf from the door. He wasn't even the main prison guard in the episode!

Leo McKern was very charming and wonderfully relaxed on set, but when you come in to do these little roles you don't get much of a chance to engage socially with the leading actors, unless you're the pushy type...and I never really was.

The real problem with these sorts of small supporting roles is that you don't really get the opportunity to establish any sort of a character except in the most basic way - in fact any real 'character' in the part would be a distraction from your only real function, which is just to say the necessary lines in as realistic way as possible and then disappear! If you do try to invest the character with something that will catch the audience's attention you've done it wrong, and the director, if they know their stuff, will take you aside for a quiet word - "I think you could probably afford to do a bit...less in this scene..." Oh, the humiliation! In series TV, the old truism that "there are no small parts, only small actors" just isn't true I'm afraid!