The Big Interview: Christopher Timothy

Profanity, swearing, words that are verboten – there are those who argue the use of profanities suggests an inferior vocabulary.

Stephen Fry makes convincing representations otherwise. In a BBC4 programme last year he said: “The sort of twee person who thinks swearing is in any way a sign of a lack of education or of a lack of verbal interest is just a f****** lunatic.”

All this is pertinent to remember when interviewing Christopher Timothy. A propensity to the more colourful spectrum of the English language is something he shares with Fry.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The actor, best known as the friendly James Herriot in the BBC’s All Creatures Great and Small, granted me the most profanity-laden interview I’ve ever carried out when he was in Bradford in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang a few years ago. It was hilarious, I was never offended (newsrooms trade in the currency of profanities) but it did come as something of a shock.

Over lunch in York last week, where he is rehearsing for the part of Anne Frank’s father Otto in a national tour, the theme continued.

“Alright, I’ll tell you a story about Olivier, but you can’t print it, it’s going in my f****** book,” laughs Timothy towards the end of our interview, the sprightliest 71-year-old you might ever meet.

In fact, let’s start there. Timothy, not only because of his colourful vocabulary, is nothing like a 71-year-old.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He tells me a story about jeans and vanity and his bum (which, he says, is pretty good for a man his age) – but before I share it, let’s agree on something. I’m not in the habit of changing interviewees’ quotes, but as this is a family newspaper I’m going to censor what Timothy said. Simply imagine liberal profanities sprinkled about the quotes.

So, the jeans.

“I’m 72 in October, so I’m 71 and a quarter.” He laughs, not unlike Sid James.

“If you’re going to put something about that, put down that I look a lot younger.”

“I expect it’s being around young people that does it.”

Do you try to keep healthy?

“Yes. No.” there’s the laugh again. “No, not at all.

“I bought a pair of jeans the other day. Annie (his second wife) told me I needed a new pair so I went into Chichester and got a pair of Wranglers because they’re better than Levis. Don’t put that!”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And here is another reason why Timothy is such an entertaining interviewee – he appears to lack the filter that stops the famous from speaking their mind.

“So I got these Wranglers and when I got home Annie said ‘they look great, they look good on your bum as well’ because my bum really isn’t what it was.

“So I went back and got another pair. Now, here’s the thing. They are a – little – a little – bit too tight, but I have another pair at home and they are the same size as these new ones. When once they’re on, by the end of the day they feel okay. You can make them fit.

“But I was not going to buy another size up and that is just pure vanity. I am starting to wonder if I’m getting a little too old to be wearing jeans – I certainly don’t wear them round my hips the way these young idiots do. But I am starting to get wary about wearing jeans. I don’t want to start looking like mutton dressed as lamb.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Having reached an age at which the wearing of jeans is a definite quandary, it means that Timothy has been around long enough to collect some great anecdotes.

He left his grammar school at 17 and, while his contemporaries went off to “posh universities”, he entered the working world with a three-year apprenticeship at a gentlemen’s outfitters in Shrewsbury. While measuring men for suits he continued in his spare time to act in amateur productions. The boss of the shop advised him to concentrate on his profession and continue with the acting on a part-time basis. Ever the contrarian, he applied to Central School of Speech and Drama in London and, following a three-year course, landed a job at the Old Vic – where he worked alongside Olivier.

“Without being a bit ***** about it, it was wonderful at 23-years-old to be working alongside big stars. Maggie Smith, Ian McKellen, Michael Yorke, Olivier – who called everybody ‘baby’, partly because he couldn’t remember everyone’s name.

“A lot of them were just mates, not stars, I shared digs with Mike Gambon and I remember sitting with Albert Finney sittting just as close as you are now. You could spot the ones that had the talent, that were going to become the big names. I wasn’t starstruck, I just admired their ability.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Parts on stage followed for Timothy and he built a sold, if not spectacular, career.

Then All Creatures Great and Small came along. Based on the books of Alf Wight, writing under the pseudonym James Herriot, the tales of a North Yorkshire vet were to become an enormous hit for the BBC.

Preparing for filming the books ahead of the series launch in 1978, Timothy had been in the running for the title role for some time.

“I was an afterthought,” says Timothy.

“I’m telling you, I was. The dates were fixed, the directors were fixed, Robert Hardy, Peter Davison, Carol Drinkwater were all cast and they hadn’t cast James.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I’d been in the running for a long time and the producers kept saying they were under pressure to cast a star. I was asked if I would consider playing Tristan and I said ‘it’s James Herriot or nothing’.

“What the heck was I thinking! I had kids, I was unemployed, what was I talking about?

“I’m told there was a meeting at the BBC and the director Peter Moffat was saying they needed to get this sorted and, I’ve heard from a few different sources, that the producer said ‘We’d like to cast Christopher but we need a star’ and Peter said ‘Let’s stop messing about, give it to him and make him a star’.”

A star was born. Timothy was in his late thirties when he was cast and he became properly famous overnight.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I loved it, it was brilliant,” he says, still gleeful. “Everyone knows you – I loved it. I think what helped was that by the time it came along I was 37, not 23, so I knew a bit about life.”

The show ran on and off for 13 years and Timothy says to this day, unlike some actors who become so firmly associated with a role, he has no regrets.

Playing a genteel, gentlemen vet, quite apart from the fact that it was an impressive piece of acting given how very much more rogueish the man is compared to the character, did eventually become an albatross for Timothy.

“I’ll tell you this story, but it has been written before – I remember one day going to see my agent and I was walking up the stairs and I heard him shouting on the phone ‘he’s an actor, not a blooming vet’,” says Timothy.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“After All Creatures I could. Not. Get. Arrested. It will sound ungracious, but I did things like the Les Dawson Show – I really liked Les – and Call My Bluff and all that sort of celebrity rubbish, but drama? Forget it.”

Here is the essential dichotomy of Timothy. He clearly wants to do good work and he’s smart enough to know that pressing the flesh, saying the right thing is a vital way to keep the career afloat. But he’s not willing to play the celebrity game.

“We’ve lost respect. There’s no reason not to respect each other, but we have lost that. I know how that sounds, but I’ve reached an age now where I can say what I flipping well like. My wife says ‘no you can’t’, but I don’t give a stuff,” he says.

“For me respect is important whether that’s for you or the people I’m working with or myself.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

He was desperate to get back on television and when a small part in The Bill came up, it must have hurt, but he took it.

“It really wasn’t a case of all the directors and producers going ‘wow, great, he’s back’. But the make-up girl on The Bill was telling me about a new show about doctors so I went for the interview.

“The producers were really enthusiastic, which is always a good sign. They didn’t tell me, however it was daytime and on the way out of the interview I saw an actress that I know. I gave her a hug and she whispered in my ear ‘you do know this is daytime don’t you?’.

“I left the building, rang my agent and said ‘if they offer it, I’ll take it’.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I just wanted to get back on television, even if it was on daytime. I love it, always have from the moment I saw my first film, Dirk Bogarde in Blue Lamp when I was a little boy.”

Six years in Doctors, the daytime soap, followed and Timothy, it appears, is back to loving life and loving acting.

“What we do is wonderful. It’s not as complicated as people make it sound. It’s simple, when you’re a kid you say ‘I’m Superman’ and you are – that’s no different from what we do now.”

It’s an attitude that has served him well through his career – he just loves what he does. Did he ever find himself turning down work or even appearing in work he didn’t particularly want to do?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“I can count the number of jobs that were rubbish that I’ve done,” he says.

“I don’t turn things down as much as you might think – I can’t afford to. But when The Diary of Anne Frank came up I thought about it long and hard.

“The thing that I questioned was given the general mood in the country, is it wise to do a production of this story which is about the most horrendous event in history. And then I thought, forget it, a good story is a good story and deserves to be told.”

Before we leave I demand a tale of working with Olivier from Timothy.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It is the story I began to relate at the beginning of this piece – the one he asked me not to share. A promise is a promise, so you’ll have to buy his book when it’s published for the full tale. Which I suspect will come with a parental warning along the lines of “Caution: Explicit Language”.

The Diary of Anne Frank, York Theatre Royal, Feb 17 – Mar 3. Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, Mar 20 – 24.

Related topics: