Robert Hardy

Actor who played Churchill, the Minister of Magic and country vet Siegfried Farnon

ROBERT HARDY, the actor, who died last Thursday aged 91, could claim a fine record of television performances spanning more than 40 years, ranging from several portrayals of Winston Churchill to the peppery vet Siegfried Farnon in the popular 1980s series All Creatures Great and Small.

He could be darkly overcast and this attribute, together with a certain physical likeness, suited him for the Churchill role which, in various television, stage and film productions, he filled numerous times.

Of these, perhaps the most memorable was his portrayal of the great man in Churchill — The Wilderness Years (1981).

Though he showed early talent at the Old Vic in the 1950s, playing roles ranging from Laertes in Hamlet to Ariel in The Tempest, he failed to progress to the National Theatre.

Hardy became prominent in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Bristol Old Vic and Prospect Productions.

While maintaining a firm foothold in the theatre, Hardy also turned to television, starring as Henry V in the Shakespearean series An Age of Kings (1960), Leicester in Elizabeth R (1970), Prince Albert in Edward VII (1975) and Mussolini in Caesar and Claretta (1975).

He also appeared as Grancourt in the BBC serialisation of Daniel Deronda (1970) and as Malcolm Campbell in Speed King (1974).

But it was as the Yorkshire country vet Siegfried Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small (1978-1990) that he secured his lasting place in viewers’ affections.

At Skeldale House in the fictional North Riding town of Darrowby (Askrigg in reality), the flamboyant Farnon and his easy-going brother Tristan (Peter Davison) built up a large rural practice, tending to the needs of farm animals and pets amid the Yorkshire Dales in the late 1930s.

Hardy typified a versatile, sensitive, sometimes tumultuous man of action among the rough-hewn farmers and VERSATILE: Robert Hardy