Edward Kelsey
Instantly recognisable voice of the roguish Joe Grundy in The Archers for more than 30 years
EDWARD KELSEY, the actor who has died aged 88, was the voice of Joe Grundy, the work-shy patriarch of the downtrodden Grundy family, in Radio 4’s The Archers. In his 34 years on the rural serial, Kelsey established Joe Grundy as a successor to Walter Gabriel in the role of venerable cuddly rogue. With his “Mummerset” burr that was thick sometimes to the point of impenetrability (often parodied by the impressionist Jon Culshaw on the radio comedy show Dead Ringers), and his habit of addressing everybody he spoke to by their full name, Joe became one of the programme’s most instantly recognisable voices.
A widower, Joe ran Grange Farm with his son Eddie (played by Trevor Harrison), and their shared ambition was to keep it a going concern while doing as little work as possible.
As tenant farmers they continually fell foul of their landlords: Neil Kinnock once observed that The Archers should be renamed “The Grundys and their Oppressors”. Joe’s great bugbear was the good fortune enjoyed by the middle-class (and relentlessly smug) Archer family. The feud was exacerbated when Joe was fined £2,000 after David Archer reported him for washing his sheep with a watering can rather than dipping them.
Although Joe Grundy mainly provided comic relief, Kelsey’s subtle, full-blooded characterisation could sometimes be intensely moving. In 2000 the Grundy family were finally evicted from Grange Farm, and moved to a council flat on the Meadow Rise estate, badly affecting Joe’s mental health.
In perhaps the most harrowing scene in the history of The Archers, Joe, after being told he could not keep animals in the flat, gently said his farewells to his beloved ferrets as he bludgeoned them with a hammer. (The effect was produced in the studio by hitting raw chicken breasts.)
In recent years some of Joe’s rough edges were smoothed away as he evolved into Ambridge’s village elder, becoming an
unlikely dispenser of wisdom as he was pulled around in a trap by his pony, Bartleby.
But Kelsey’s Joe was always at his best providing a caustic chorus on Ambridge events in the manner of a Thomas Hardy rustic. He brought a sublime deadpan timing to lines such as (on being told that Shula Archer had been carrying on simultaneous romances with Ambridge’s GP and vet): “Good job there isn’t a dentist in the village.”
Edward Kelsey was born at Petersfield, Hampshire, on June 4 1930. As a child he gave performances in the front room of the family home to raise money for the Red Cross, and he joined the local amateur dramatic group as a teenager. Although he planned to study medicine, his academic plans were deferred for his National Service with the RAF.
He was granted early release after he secured a place to study Speech and Drama at the Royal Academy of Music; he had walked 18 miles in the rain to the audition following his day’s duties.
In his final year he won both the acting Gold Medal and the BBC’S Student Acting Prize (now known as the Carleton Hobbs Bursary), which secured him a six-month contract with the BBC Radio Drama Company under Val Gielgud. He then toured with Brian Rix’s company in Reluctant Heroes and spent time in rep in Guildford.
He took over the role of Joe Grundy in 1985, in difficult circumstances. His friend Haydn Jones, who had played the part since 1977, had died suddenly, and Heather Bell, who played Joe’s daughter-in-law Clarrie, had walked out after being refused time off to attend his funeral. Two years later, Heather Bell’s replacement, Fiona Mathieson, committed suicide. Kelsey, a good company man, strove to give listeners a sense of continuity through these upheavals.
Meanwhile his dozens of television appearances included roles in The Avengers, Dr Finlay’s Casebook, The Saint, Z Cars, Casualty, A Perfect Spy and The Vicar of Dibley; he was also in Doctor Who opposite three different incarnations of The Doctor – William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. He was particularly memorable as the doomed earthenware manufacturer Titus Price in Arnold Bennett’s Anna of the Five Towns (BBC, 1985).
He was also a regular voice in the cartoon spy parody Danger Mouse, playing both the “M” figure, Colonel K (a chinchilla), and the super-villain Baron Greenback (a toad). In 2005 he gave a scene-stealing turn as the voice of the hunchbacked Mr Growbag in Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit.
He also wrote many radio plays and adaptations, and in 1991 scripted The Ambridge Pageant, a stage show with which he and fellow Archers cast members toured the country.
Ted Kelsey, unlike Joe Grundy, was softly spoken and mild-mannered, and much liked by his fellow actors. He sat on the Audio Committee of Equity for more than 40 years, including a period as its chairman. In 1992 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in acknowledgement of many decades’ service as an examiner.
He continued to work on The Archers, despite ill health, until earlier this month; his last episodes will be broadcast in the coming weeks.
Edward Kelsey married, in 1955, Birgit, a Swede whom he met during his National Service; they had a daughter and two sons, one of whom died in 2006. His wife died last year.