Although he has fancied women all his life, Geoffery Palmer admits he's always been useless with them. As he prepares for the final episode of As Time Goes By, he tells Rebecca Hardy why he loves working with Judi Dench -- unlike a certain comedy actress "who drives him mad."
There’s a lot that is shockingly unexpected about Geoffrey Palmer. For a start, he is not grumpy at all. In fact, he’s rather jolly. He likes girls -- ‘they are a terrible distraction in life’ -- has a passion for fly-fishing and is even mildly tolerant of his on-screen doppelgänger Lionel Hardcastle in the BBC sitcom As Time Goes By. ‘I don’t think I’d necessarily loathe being Lionel,’ he says. ‘He’s no more bigoted than me. I wouldn’t want to be married to Judi Dench’s character, though. She’d drive me up the wall — like you-know-who.’
‘You-know-who’ is a well-known comic actress whom Geoffrey can’t abide. ‘I hate people who laugh and smile to show they’re being funny — like Des O’Connor. Des is dear and lovely and smiling all the time. There’s an actress whose name escapes me. It doesn’t, but Geoffrey is far too much of a gentleman to name her. She smiles all the time to be endearing. Oh dear, listen to me. As I left home this morning. my wife said. “Now, do be careful what you say. I don’t mind you mentioning Des O’Connor. but don’t put her name in.”
Geoffrey has made a career of understated drollery. His face helps. It’s a jowly, lugubrious face that puts you in mind of a basset hound. ‘At least it’s still here — the face,’ he says, and his downturned mouth moves upwards to laugh. Geoffrey actually laughs a lot. He’s 78 now and, for the past 13 years, he has partnered Dame Judi Dench in As Time Goes By. He calls her ‘Jude’. ‘Everyone says “Jude” to show they know her well.’ he says with a wry smile. When Geoffrey first learned that he was going to be working with the distinguished actress, he wasn’t overawed at all. Before I worked with her, people said, Oh, you haven't worked with Jude? She's lovely. ‘You’re going to love her'. Of course, by the time I met I met her I thought, 'I’m going to hate this bloody woman.' ’’ But you don't. You can’t. She is a boringly nice person.
It's the unobvious things that impress, really. In the first series we were having lunch one day and she was going down to Chichester to do a play. I asked her when the play was opening. Although she's only met my wife, Sally briefly, she said, "Oh, the press night is Sally’s birthday.” Sally’s birthday had only been casually mentioned, but it was in Jude’s diary. She sent flowers and a card. It would be easy to say, now, that a lot of the execution of that is done by Jude’s secretary. but it doesn’t alter the fact that the woman behind it — who works 500 days a year— wills it.’
Geoffrey himself would never send a bunch of flowers: ‘It’s a waste of money. It’s £40 by the time you’ve sent them. What’s that about? I don’t think I’m mean, but I’m cautious; conservative with a small “c”. Always have been.’
This month, Geoffrey and Judi will appear in the very last episode of As Time Goes By. ‘Judi and I were talked into doing it,’ he says. Its an epitaph. No, it’s a eulogy. No, a finale. This is the last, final, very final, farewell tour of Dench and Palmer.’ There’s no sadness, no sense of regret when he says this. Geoffrey loves to act, but his great passion now is fly-fishing.
‘I take jobs as they come, if it’s something I’d like to do — and if it doesn’t interfere with fishing. I’ve been amazingly fortunate over the past 25 years. I’ve earned a nice living, which most actors don’t, and I’ve done some nice work. It hasn’t been great classical theatre, but most of the stuff l've done has been, in its genre, quality.’
Geoffrey was awarded an OBE in January recognising his comic brilliance in such roles as Jimmy, the eccentric brother-in-law to Leonard Rossiter’.s Reggie Perrin; and Wendy Craig’s long-suffering husband, Ben. in Carla Lane’s classic comedy Butterflies. Geoffrey, though, is uncomfortable with plaudits. He tends to bat them away with a deadpan wit. ‘One of the most extraordinary things was the number of calls I received from people I thought were dead and buried congratulating me on the OBE. It was nice to hear from them,’ he says. I sense, in some ways, that Geoffiey is happiest observing life’s absurdities, rather than adding to them. He doesn’t like to be interviewed and rarely is. He has never appeared on a chat show and says he is a ‘pathological non- joiner’. ‘We’ve lived in the Chiltem Hills for 36 years,’ he says. I hardly know anyone. I don’t go to church unless someone dies or gets married. I don’t go to parish council meetings. If someone organises a Plant-a-Tree Week. I probably won’t bother. I’m fairly antisocial.
‘In our early married days. we’d be asked to a party and I’d say, I don’t want to go. I know enough people. Going to a party is my idea of hell. Why would I want to do that?’ Sally would say. “You’re missing out on meeting a lot of interesting people. I’d say, “I’m sure I am, but I’ll be missing out on meeting a load of grovelling bores as well, who would be bored by me, too.’”
Geoffrey is far from boring. In fact, he is the sort of man who, I Imagine, when on form, could invigorate the dullest of parties. He says he used to be bubbly; that, in fact, as a child he bubbled too much. He grew up, the youngest of two boys, in north London, attending Highgate School. His father, a chartered surveyor, called Geoffrey’s mother Gwen, even though her name was Nora. His father was christened Freddie. but Nora/Gwen prefened the name Bill. Geoffrey says his wartime childhood was ‘pretty middle-of-the-road: pretty middle- class’. For him, the smell of a privet hedge evokes all sorts of memories. ‘That strange, dusty smell is childhood and suburbia for me — hiding from the other boys; getting your wooden sword out. It takes me straight back to my childhood. I was an average boy, Geoffrey Average Palmer. I think I smiled more, but was lazy and chatted much too much.’
Geoffrey excelled during his National Service with the Royal Marines. The uniform of the elite force, he says, was so much smarter than that of his contemporaries who joined the humble Essex Regiment. A job as an assistant sales manager that followed was far less glamorous. “When the girls came in, I just looked at their knees and couldn’t sell them a thing,’ he says. I’m still not very good with women. I was so desperately shy and desperately didn't want to be laughed at. I remember going to the cinema to see Bambi at 16 with a friend, his girlfriend and her friend. As I recall, the friend was a rather pretty girl, with everything in all the right places. Her name was Daphne Hogg.
‘I knew I should hold her hand or something. but I just didn’t know how to do it. I remember thinking, “You’ve got to say something. What shall I say?” I knew her name so there was no point asking that. I thought, “I can’t really say ‘I love you’ because I don’t really know you.” In the end, the only thing I said during the whole film was, “I’ll be back in a minute”, because I wanted to pee. "I don’t think I ever saw her again.’ Girls, it seems, or the desire for them, have shaped Geoffrey. He says he only decided to become an actor in the hope of appearing more interesting to the opposite sex. I had this huge sex drive. I still look at girls and think, “Christ, aren’t they wonderful” But I was never a great seducer.
‘My chum had a cousin staying who was a professional actor. He was great fun and very witty. I thought, “Why don’t I do that? Then, I might be like him as opposed to someone who works in an office and is dull." I soon found that I loved it. The best kick, as an actor, is being on stage, either holding the audience and making them quiet -- or making them laugh. It really is a good skill -- and a pretty good drug.'
Geoffrey was in his 20s before he lost his virginity. He says he lost h imself for a while, too. ‘My first serious relationship wasn’t a huge passion. She was a sweet, delightful girl, but it wasn’t a passion. All the other boys seemed to be good with girls and I was so appallingly bad. Also, before I became an actor, I had the feeling of being lost because I had no idea on God’s earth what I wanted to do in life.
Then, when I was an actor and rep in Scotland or something I would come back and see chums who were all doing extremely well and had motor bikes or cars, and I had nothing. I thought, “I’m enjoying myself, but I’m not doing very well in any area.” A sort of self- awareness that I was sexually lost came along — although I never thought I was gay for a second — and about where I was going in life. Everyone else seemed so confident.’ Befitting his late development, Geoffrey was 30 when he landed his first TV role in the comedy The Army Game. Six years later he married Sally. ‘I was ready to be married. She arrived at the right time and I was susceptible when I wouldn’t have been ten years earlier. There were three or four girls who might have wanted to marry me. But I know I'd have been a terrible husband. I wasn't grown-up enough.’
Geoffrey has been married to Sally for 42 years. They have two grown-up children, Charles and Harriet, and two grandchildren. He says, ‘Sally was very pretty and still is. She is also open, warm, generous and sunny natured. Until I crushed her in the last few years. She'd get up and say, “Hey, it’s a new day — another opportunity”. Whereas I wake up and think, who is going to stitch me up today? He adores his wife, and says he’s been amazingly fortunate." Much of our conversation is punctuated with 'Sally' this and 'my wife' that. But there is honesty, too. Children, he admits were 'bloody difficult'.
'There was a low point for a while when the children were about 12 and 15. Sally wanted to move back to London because she thought she was missing some intellectual, cafe society-style stimulus,' he says. As it had been her idea to move out of London, where I'd been perfectly happy, I said, "No, You made your bed, so lie in it. Notting Hill isn't necessarily full of stimulation. We make our own stimulation."'
Geoffrey's children were grown up by the time he first found the fame he enjoys today is Jimmy in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin in 1976. He has also appeared in the hit films A Fish Called Wanda, The Madness Of King George and the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. I suggest his late-flowering success in probably something to do with a face more suited to disgruntled age than optimistic youth. He laughs again. It's just a set of features.
I think Sally would agree with me; we've both been pretty lucky,' he says. We understand each other pretty well. Because I go fishing whenever I can, she now comes with me and loves being there as much as I do. Sure, I've been tempted [to have affairs], but not any more. I'm past all that. You just don't give in to the temptation. It could be habit-forming, couldn't it?" As he says this, Geoffrey's face shapes itself into an expression approaching mischief. And then he winks.
Thanks to Phil Watson for sending me this article which appeared in the Daily Mail Sunday Supplement (UK) on December 18, 2005.