UK
Character actor born in London,
England, 4 June 1927.
Geoffrey
Palmer is one of British
television's most reliable supporting
actors, appearing in several of
the most popular situation
comedies of the last 20 years or
so and on occasion taking the
lead role himself.
With
his bloodhound features and
lugubrious voice and manner,
Palmer is instantly familiar in
whatever role he plays. Not only
is his face at once recognizable
from the situation comedies he
has appeared in, but his voice is
doubly well known from his
frequent employment as a voice-over
artist for television
commercials (notably for Audi cars). After
serving his apprenticeship as an actor in the
theater, Palmer
emerged as an accomplished and individual performer in
television situation comedy
through his
casting as the absent-minded
eccentric Jimmy, brother-in-law
to Leonard Rossiter's Perrin in The
Rise and Fall of Reginald
Perrin.
Forever apologizing for turning
up at the Perrin household in
search of a meal after yet another
"cock-up on the catering
front," Palmer's Jimmy was manifestly
appealing, though divorced from reality and pathetically
woebegone. These qualities were
clearly
ideal for situation comedy and,
soon after the end of the Perrin series, Palmer was back on the
screen on a regular basis
playing Wendy Craig's other half in
Carla Lane's hit series
Butterflies.
As manic-depressive dentist Ben
Parkinson, Palmer provided
extremely sturdy support to
Craig herself, alternately
bewildered at his wife's
outbursts and endearingly
patient and clumsy in his
efforts to understand her
frustrations--though he could
also be stubborn, tactless and
impervious to suggestion when he
chose.
Palmer returned to the dottiness
of Jimmy in the Perrin series
when he went on to play the
comically unhinged Major Harry
Kitchener Wellington Truscott,
the central character in Fairly
Secret Army. Convinced that the
country was on the brink of
chaos due to the machinations of
the political left, Truscott was
committed to forming his own
army to counter the revolution
that he feared was just around
the corner. Thanks largely to
Palmer's performance as Truscott
this seemingly unpromising
scenario fared reasonably well,
with the dotty major proving
surprisingly lovable in his
futile attempts to muster a
competent force, despite his
reactionary views and rabidly
bigoted attitude towards those
of differing political opinions.
His
subsequent series, Executive
Stress and As Time Goes By, both
saw Palmer back in more familiar
sitcom territory, playing belligerently adorable partners
in support of strong female
stars, in the first instance Penelope
Keith (in the role of her
husband,
Donald Fairchild) and in the
latter case Judi Dench (in the
role of her old flame, Lionel
Hardcastle).
Executive Stress proved a mixed success, though Palmer gave good
value as always, but As Time
Goes By settled in well as the
plot traced the reunion of the
two erstwhile lovers. Palmer played
a returned colonial planning to write his memoirs, to be typed
up by Dench's secretarial
agency.
This led to the gradual rebirth
of their romance, culminating in their marriage in the 1995
series. Palmer has occasionally
ventured out of the sitcom
territory with which he is
usually associated. Notable
examples of experiments in other
fields of comedy have included
guest appearances in such
acclaimed shows as Fawlty Towers
and Blackadder Goes Forth, in
which he played Field Marshall
Haig.
-David Pickering
His
subsequent series, Executive
Stress and As Time Goes By, both
saw Palmer back in more familiar
sitcom territory, playing belligerently adorable partners
in support of strong female
stars, in the first instance Penelope
Keith (in the role of her
husband, 
