TRIBUTES TO FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER STAR RITTER
STARS lined up to pay tribute to Friday Night Dinner star Paul Ritter, who has died at the age of 54.
The actor, who also appeared in Chernobyl and Harry Potter, had been suffering from a brain tumour.
His agent said yesterday: ‘It is with great sadness we can confirm that Paul Ritter passed away last night. He died peacefully at home with his wife Polly and sons Frank and Noah by his side.
‘Paul was an exceptionally talented actor playing an enormous variety of roles on stage and screen with extraordinary skill.’
Ritter was best known for his role as eccentric father Martin Goodman alongside Tamsin Greig, Tom Rosenthal and Simon Bird in Channel 4’s hit comedy Friday Night Dinner.
He also played Anatoly Dyatlov in the acclaimed drama Chernobyl and Eldred Worple in Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. Other notable roles were in Vera, Wolf Hall and as butler Turton in Belgravia. He was also in the James Bond film Quantum Of Solace.
Vera star Brenda Blethyn described Ritter, who played pathologist Billy Cartwright, as ‘the very finest of actors and a gentleman’.
Stephen Mangan said he was ‘trying to find a way to talk about Paul Ritter and struggling’, adding: ‘ My friend since we were students together. So much talent and it shone from him even as a teenager.’
Catastrophe star Rob Delaney tweeted: ‘Knocked it out of the PARK in Chernobyl. Watching it I consciously thought, “Oh, we have a new movie star.” Between that & how funny he was in Friday Night Dinner... just unreal talent.’
Mark Gatiss wrote: ‘ What an actor. What a presence. So shocked and saddened by this awful news.’
Eddie Marsan recalled watching Ritter on stage in Three Sisters, performing a monologue he knew well.
‘But when he did it, I forgot I’d heard it before,’ he added.