RIP Richard Briers

When I heard the news earlier this week that actor Richard Briers had passed away at the age of 79, I was deeply saddened. Only a month or so ago, I had read an interview with him in The Guide in which he talked about what turned out to be his final project, the comedy film Cockneys vs Zombies. What you couldn't fail to notice, reading that interview, was how completely charming, witty and funny he was. It's an opinion that has been echoed in the many obituaries I have read this week. Quite simply, Richard Briers was one of life's nice guys. He was also a wonderful actor, whose work touched people's lives.

Like many others, I first became aware of Richard Briers through his role as Tom Good in the classic BBC sitcom The Good Life, which ran from 1975 to 1978. However, I am of course too young to remember the series when it was first aired. It was introduced to me a few years ago by my parents. They described it as "sweet but very funny." I loved it.

For those who haven't seen the show, it revolves around a suburban couple, Tom and Barbara Good (played by Briers and Felicity Kendal) and their attempts to live self-sufficiently, much to the disapproval of their conservative neighbours Margo and Jerry Leadbetter (played by Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington). The chemistry between the four actors is wonderful to watch, and it's little wonder that viewers took the characters to their hearts. Briers' death sadly means that now only two cast members remain - Felicity Kendal and Penelope Keith. Paul Eddington died of skin cancer in 1995.

For Penelope Keith, Briers was not just a co-star, but a close friend. She has spoken this week of his humour and self-deprecation, and how she has never heard anyone say a bad word about him. That just goes to show what a kind and courteous man he was.

Of course, Briers was not just known for The Good Life. He had a long and successful career and was equally adept at comedy and straight acting. He started out on the stage and found television success in 1961 with Marriage Lines, in which he co-starred with Prunella Scales (later of Fawlty Towers). After the enormous success of The Good Life, he starred in another much-loved sitcom, Ever Decreasing Circles, from 1984 to 1989. He played compulsive 'pillar of the community' Martin Bryce, with Penelope Wilton as his long-suffering wife Ann. In recent years, he starred in Monarch of the Glen.

Briers returned to his roots in theatre on joining Kenneth Branagh's company in the late 1980s, playing key roles in the likes of King Lear. He also starred in Branagh's film versions of Henry V, Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the TV adaptation of Twelfth Night.

He will also be fondly remembered as a part of people's childhoods - he did voice work in Roobarb and Custard, Noddy, Watership Down and latterly Bob the Builder.

In a recent interview, he spoke of his poor health due to years of smoking. He gave up cigarettes ten years ago, but admitted, "I've got emphysema, you see, so I'm buggered." Right until the end of his life, that self-deprecation still came through.

We have lost another great actor, but he and his work will always be remembered with a fond smile. RIP Richard.

Christmas Reading

One of the advantages of having an extremely long break between semesters is that I have plenty of time to read the books I got for Christmas - and believe me, I needed it. This past month's reading material has been comprised of the long-awaited autobiography from one of my favourite musicians and the definitive biography of one of my favourite actors.

Who I Am by Pete Townshend

I had been waiting for this book to be published since at least 2006, and Pete Townshend had spent much longer than that working on it. Fans of The Who will remember that a few years ago Pete took to posting snippets of his life story on his blog, and I was one of the many who read these with interest. When news of the book's publication finally arrived last year, I was beside myself with excitement. I just knew it was going to be so good - never before have I had such a positive feeling about a book before even picking it up.

Pete Townshend is a musical genius, and I don't use the term lightly. He is one of the greatest songwriters in the history of popular music. He's always had an incredible mind that is constantly working away on something or other, as Who fans know only too well, and it's not always music either. That's why I was so positive about the book; because he's had such an amazing life story. Rock star autobiographies can be a bit hit and miss and a lot of them are ghost-written. Not Pete's. As you would expect, it is extremely well-written, brutally honest and candid.

He has always been a highly complex person, and his somewhat harrowing childhood goes a long way to explaining that. His memories of abuse at the hands of his grandmother are still painful for him today, and indeed are painful even to read about. This led to further problems down the line, such as the breakdown of his marriage and his drug and alcohol addictions.

While it was fascinating to read about the creative process behind his work for both The Who and his solo career, what was most interesting about the book was that it allowed me to understand Pete as a person more than I have previously been able to do, either through listening to his music or reading/watching his many interviews. He has often been labelled arrogant or pretentious (and he has confessed to both at times in his career) but what is clear from this book is the deep insecurity he has always felt about so many aspects of himself. It is nice to read, after all this time, that the other band members mean so much to him. He and Roger Daltrey had their spats in the early days, but he is very loving and generous towards Roger here, and it's great that they get on so well these days.

Some people were disappointed, feeling that Townshend was self-pitying throughout, but in my view he was just being one hundred per cent honest, laying his soul bare. What this book gave me was a true look inside the mind of one of my heroes.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers by Roger Lewis

As I mentioned here before, Peter Sellers is one of my favourite actors. I have long been fascinated by him, and it has long been my ambition to read this book, which was made into a film a few years ago starring Geoffrey Rush. At over 1000 pages, some may say it's too long. Indeed, this has been one of the most frequent criticisms of the book, which still divides Sellers fans well over a decade since it's publication. Other criticisms are that it's far too analytical, self-indulgent and tramples on his memory. It's far from flawless, but personally I'd rather read a biography that analyses rather than merely documenting the events of the subject's life in chronological order.

There can be no denying Sellers' incredible talent. I would consider him the greatest comic actor of his generation, and I will always be a huge fan of his. That said, his personal life was anything but savoury, and while Roger Lewis is a self-confessed Sellers fanatic, that doesn't stop him from showing us what the man was really like. He always claimed that he had no personality of his own outside of the characters he became, but whether this was insecurity talking or an attempt to disguise the fact that he could be nasty, selfish and spiteful is hard to know.

Spoiled and indulged by an overbearing mother, Sellers grew up with the same kind of attitude in his adult life. He was difficult to work with, throwing tantrums on set, sacking directors left right and centre and generally getting his own way. His relationship with Blake Edwards (who directed him in the Pink Panther series and The Party) was particularly turbulent, and Edwards felt that Sellers resented him for having propelled him to movie stardom with the Inspector Clouseau character. At the same time, from his days on the radio with The Goon Show, Sellers was determined to become a film star.

He was equally appalling as a husband and father, as has been well-documented. Sellers was married four times and each of those marriages ended in disaster. His three children - Michael, Sarah and Victoria - suffered badly from his mood swings. He would frequently whisk them off to exotic locations and take them on holidays, while at other times he didn't want to know them. There are many disturbing stories in the book, from Sellers disowning his children in a rage and confiscating toys to waking them up in the middle of the night and demanding to know which parent they loved most.

At times the book can be tough going, and Lewis can be accused of over-analysing certain things, but for the most part it is a fascinating portrait of a deeply disturbed man with a brilliant talent.