The distinguished actor who plays television’s idiots

Press, 17 April 1980, Page 12

The distinguished actor who plays television’s idiots

By

HELEN HOWARD

With his distinguished grey hair and elegant velvet suit, it was hard to believe that here was a man who has cornered the market in playing TV half-wits! After 10 years as the gormless Private Pike in the Home Guard saga, “Dad’s Army,” 34-year-old lan Lavender has now created a haracter of

even more monumental soppiness:. Ron in the smash-hit TV comedy “The Glums.” “Compared with Ron, Private Pike was a veritable Einstein,’ says lan. “Rons an absolute idiot. But he’s very funny.” Just how did lan, who is certainly nobody’s fool, get into playing TV idiots? He had just left drama school and had had his first experience of working in repertory theatre when he was asked to audition for a new TV series, “Dad’s Army.”

“I was so green when I started that having a TV camera pointed at me felt like being put up against a wall and shot,” he recalls. “Once I moved some furniture on the set and nearly caused a strike!” But he learned quickly, and was soon the TV favourite of more than 12 million fans, including the Queen. Indeed, he entered the show a complete unknown and left it a decade later an established star.

There were other changes, too, not . all so fortunate. He was married the year the series started, to an actress, Sue Kerchiss. They were divorced

three years ago and have joint custody of their two sons Daniel, eight, and Sam, five. “Our marriage broke up because we. drifted apart,” lan says. “We had problems that we might have avoided had we foreseen them. Now I can see how our marriage could have worked, but it’s too late. It’s all part of growing up I suppose.” • - In the early days of “Dad’s Army” lan . found his growing fame a bit of a strain. “I hated talking to strangers. If I didn’t know anyone at a party I went home early and read a book. My personal life was nil. “After all, it had taken

me 18 months to ask my first girlfriend for a date. When she said yes, I was so scared that I turned up with a mate!” lan admits that he was

'very sad when “Dad’s Army” finally got its marching orders. “Actors wait all their lives to appear on a series that popular — and I stepped into one at the start of my career. “I had friendship, fun and success from it — and a lot more self-con-fidence. I’m sad the show is over. I still watch it whenever I can, because I think it’s very funny.” Despite his decade of experience playing Private Pike, lan says he was terrified at the prospect of playing Ron Glum. He had been a schoolboy fan of the family when they were part of the famous “Take It From Here” radio

show; in the fifties. “I always imagined Ron would be about six feet six,” he says. “I’m nowhere near that —■ so I don’t even measure up to my own idea of Ron, let alone anyone else’s.” In fact the series, costarring Patricia Brake as his girlfriend Eth and Jimmy, Edwards as Ron’s oafish dad, has been hailed as one of TV’s brightest comedy successes and at least two more series are. planned — if enough television scripts can be salvaged from the original radio shows. lan’s 71-year-old mother thoroughly enjoys “The Glums” — and this thrills lan, who regards her judgment as uncannily right. “She may not be the world’s greatest critic,” he says. “But she’s a marvellous barometer. If she doesn’t like a play I’m in, I know I’m not in for a long run. “I never ask her more than if she liked it or not and if it made her laugh.

If she says yes, that’s good enough for me. “I’ve played a few saucy parts, but I would never play anything my mum didn’t like. I would be uncomfortable doing something she had told- me was distasteful to her.”

lan may be the world’s worst ladies’ man. on the screen, but off it he has a steady and happy relationship with 36-year-old choreographer and stage director Michelle Hardy, with whom he has shared a four-bedroomed house, in Wandsworth, London, for the last four years. “Michelle is a smashing lady,” says lan. “I met her soon after my marriage broke up. She tried to teach me to dance and that was the start of it. We have been together ever since, but I still can’t dance.

“I’m not against marriage but we seem to be all right as we are. We talk about it, but neither of us has actually proposed. It’s an awful risk because you can only get

a straight ‘yes’ or ’no’.” But for ail his spineless stage image, Tan admits that he can be difficult — “I get very angry when working with people who are incompetent” — and at one time he even kept t “black list” of people he would not work with. “I have an actor’s temperament,” he explains, “and if I’m in a bad mood, no one can get me out of it” But most of the time he is thoroughly easygoing, and quite happy to be mothered by the middle-aged lady fans who “always treat me as though I’m about 17.” He looks young on the screen. As Private Pike, he needed a coloured rinse to hide the fact that his hair was going grey. “Sitting in the hairdressers’ with a plastic bag over my head reading ‘Vogue’ always sent lady clients into hysterics,” he remembers. No wonder he is pleased that most of the time the gormless Ron’s head is firmly inside a cap