Richard Davies
Richard Davies is an actor, born 1926.
The accent did a lot of the work. Richard Davies, born Dennis Wilfred Davies in Dowlais, kept a broad Welsh voice for most of his career, and on British television it functioned as an instant character note: a man from somewhere specific, usually put-upon, frequently right. He could do other accents and did, but casting directors knew what they were ringing him for.
His defining part is Mr Price, the perpetually exasperated schoolmaster in Please Sir!, which is harder than it looks. A comedy set in a school needs a teacher who is genuinely at the end of his patience and still turns up on Monday, and Davies played the fatigue rather than the joke, which is why the character survives the decade that produced him.
The rest is a full working life in British film and television: a small part in The Lavender Hill Mob in 1951, Private 593 Jones in Zulu, Mr Pritchard in the film of Under Milk Wood, Mr. White in the Fawlty Towers episode about a kipper, appearances in Yes Minister, 2Point4 Children and One Foot in the Grave. He also played Burton in the 1987 Doctor Who serial Delta and the Bannermen, the credit that has kept his name in circulation with a certain kind of viewer.
Movies (5)
TV (14)
Where to start with Richard Davies
Please Sir! is the obvious start and the correct one, since Mr Price is the performance the rest of the career hangs off. British sitcom of that vintage takes a little adjustment, but the staffroom scenes are the good ones and he is at the centre of most of them.
For film, Zulu is the big title, and he is one of the soldiers in the line rather than one of the officers with speeches, which is its own kind of useful. Under Milk Wood is the Welsh one, an adaptation of the Dylan Thomas radio play, and the closest thing here to a piece of art. The most enjoyable of his guest turns is probably Mr. White in Fawlty Towers. After that, dip in anywhere: Yes Minister, One Foot in the Grave, 2Point4 Children and Twisted Nerve all use him the same way, as a reliable dose of reality dropped into somebody else's chaos.