Rupert Vansittart

Rupert Vansittart has spent four decades playing men who are certain they outrank you. The character names alone make the case: Lord Bottoms in Braveheart, George the Boor at the Boatman in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Rich Guy in Black Books, Sir Geoffrey Wren in The Remains of the Day, Mr Hurst in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice.

It is a narrow lane and he is exceptionally good in it. The trick is that he never plays these men as fools who suspect they are fools. He plays them as entirely comfortable, which is what makes them funny in comedy and what makes them cold in drama. Sir Geoffrey Wren is the same register as the comic parts with the jokes taken out, and it lands harder for it.

Television is where the volume is. He was Lord Ashfordly across the long ITV run of Heartbeat, from 1992 to 2009, and Lord Yohn Royce in Game of Thrones between 2014 and 2019, a part that is not among the credits listed here. Elsewhere: Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, The Thin Blue Line, Gentleman Jack, Chewing Gum, The Nevers, The Diplomat and Belgravia: The Next Chapter. Film keeps calling too, through The Bank Job, Austenland, A United Kingdom and The Children Act. Character actors of this kind rarely get profiles written about them, and British screen comedy would be measurably worse without them.