The comedy actor Brian Murphy was the mainstay of a number of hit tv exhibits wherein he was always outmanoeuvred by contemptuous and implacable ladies: Mildred Roper, Kitty McShane and Nora Batty had been three of them.
The general public picture was of a ferret-faced and crafty-eyed loser, his thinning hair in a comb-over. Enjoying feeble, dim and crafty, Murphy specialised in a form of low-level reedy grumble that might swiftly escalate into yelping panic. It was, nonetheless, one way or the other all the time clear that the weak point of his characters was firmly rooted within the power and intelligence of his interpretation.
Murphy, who has died aged 92, grew to become well-known in six sequence of Man In regards to the Home on Thames Tv, written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, which ran from 1973 to 1976. Man In regards to the Home adopted the fortunes of three younger folks (performed by Richard O’Sullivan, Sally Thomsett and Paula Wilcox) sharing a flat, with Murphy and Yootha Joyce taking part in George and Mildred Roper, who owned the home and lived under them. The socially formidable Mildred was flirtatious and one thing of a predator, whereas the ineffectual and petty-minded George was clearly unable or unwilling to deal with his spouse’s sexuality – although he might be seedily lascivious in direction of the youthful feminine characters.
He and Joyce – who had been shut associates because the Nineteen Fifties, when each had labored for Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop firm – had been an excellent pairing, and earlier than lengthy grew to become the present’s stars, resulting in a spin-off, George and Mildred – additionally for Thames and written by Mortimer and Cooke – which ran for 5 sequence from 1976 to 1979. At its peak the present attracted as much as 20 million viewers within the UK, making Joyce and Murphy family names.
When later requested if he felt haunted by the character of George Roper, Murphy was sanguine. “I’ve lengthy since come to phrases with it,” he stated. “I had form of made a reputation in theatre earlier than George and Mildred got here alongside, so the truth that I grew to become well-known to a wider viewers simply allowed me extra alternatives within the theatre. They had been happy to have a ‘identify’ on the invoice.”
George and Mildred ended when Joyce, an alcoholic, died on the age of 53 in 1980, with Murphy at her bedside.
Murphy then took the starring position in two sitcoms, The Unimaginable Mr Tanner (ITV, 1981), wherein he performed an escapologist, and L for Lester (BBC Two, 1982), as Lester Small, a driving teacher.
In 1982 there got here a private stage triumph in Alan Plater’s On Your Method, Riley, wherein Murphy performed the music-hall drag star Arthur Lucan, who appeared on stage and movie within the 30s as Previous Mom Riley.
As a baby Murphy had been taken by his mother and father to see Lucan and Kitty McShane (“Previous Mom Riley and Her Daughter”) at his native selection theatre, and he beloved all of them his life. So he jumped on the likelihood and positively rose to the problem of taking part in Lucan in Plater’s play, first offered on the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. He was partnered by Maureen Lipman as Lucan’s spouse and stage daughter Kitty. The play was later tailored for tv and proven on ITV in 1985, with Murphy and Lipman once more in the principle roles.
On Your Method, Riley was a real-life, backstage tragi-comedy – George and Mildred with out the straightforward laughs. Murphy, with super grace and poignancy, sank to the depths of despair as a besotted previous trouper in a relationship wherein his a lot youthful spouse, tempestuous and faithless, flaunted her lovers in entrance of him. He additionally recreated Lucan’s slapstick routines with nice constancy. Lipman, too, was magnificent as the girl who despised Lucan as a person whereas acknowledging that as a performer he was “a genius”.
Murphy was born in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, to Mabel (nee Matthews) and Gerald Murphy, who ran a restaurant. His two elder brothers, Ken and Eric, had been killed on energetic service in the course of the second world warfare. Brian was referred to as up for nationwide service in 1950 and labored as a clerk at RAF Northwood, close to London, the place he met one other aspiring actor, Richard Briers, who additionally went on to be a tv comedy star, in The Good Life.
When he was demobbed, Murphy studied at Rada and in 1955 joined Littlewood’s firm in east London, showing in Oh! What a Beautiful Battle and Sparrers Can’t Sing. “She stored on casting me to play these humorous previous males,” he stated. “I used to be younger and never clearly handsome, so it fell to my lot to impersonate previous codgers.” He additionally performed bit elements on TV in sequence comparable to Z Vehicles and Dixon of Dock Inexperienced.
Murphy married Carol Gibson in 1957 and the couple had two sons; as he approached 40, elements grew to become scarcer, and at one level he thought of giving up appearing to turn into an insurance coverage salesman. However then Man In regards to the Home appeared, and he remained solidly in work for the remainder of his profession.
Within the 90s he was in One Foot within the Grave and had elements in The Invoice, Casualty and Mrs Merton and Malcolm. From 2003 to 2010 he performed the timid however devious Alvin Smedley within the BBC’s Final of the Summer season Wine as a neighbour of the ferocious Nora Batty (Kathy Workers), taking the place of Invoice “Compo” Owen, who had died in 1999.
Theatre included the title position in Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Road, by Christopher Bond on the Theatre Royal, Stratford East (1973); Soppit in When We Are Married, by JB Priestley, on the Whitehall theatre, London (1986) and Jim in Roll on Friday, by Roger Corridor, on the Watford Palace theatre (1989).
In 2001 he toured as Al Lewis in Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys, with Ron Moody. Two years later he was within the ITV comedy The Booze Cruise and in 2010 made an look in Hustle on BBC One. He continued working into his 80s, together with appearances in Holby Metropolis and Casualty, and had most just lately been filming for a comedy in late 2024.
His marriage to Carol resulted in divorce; in 1995 he married the actor Linda Regan. She survives him, as do his sons, Trevor and Kevin, from his first marriage.
Brian Trevor John Murphy, actor, born 25 September 1932; died 2 February 2025
