Keith Michell - An Imperfect Portrait

If you grew up in the UK around the late seventies or early eighties you'll have heard it. That playfully gung-ho, pseudo-military introduction, then that voice. A round, fruity, beautifully elocuted voice with a slight raspy edge to it. and what did it say? All together now:

"The bravest animals in the land are captain Beaky and his band, that's Timid Toad, Wreckless Rat, Artful Owl and Batty Bat. They march the woodland singing songs that tell how they have righted wrongs!"

I'll spare you the rest, though I could probably remember it, given time and a few glasses of wine. The man who gave us Captain Beaky, a dear memory of my childhood was called Keith Michell, and I heard yesterday of his death at the venerable age of eighty-eight. I could talk here about his birth in Australia, his life in the UK, his talents for acting, directing, illustrating and business, but that's for other people who know far more about him than I do. This amazing actor has played his role, small though it be, in my life and my memories, so this is my imperfect portrait of him.

When I was a little girl in the seventies, I don't remember exactly which year this was but I know I was old enough to stay up past the soap operas, there was always one evening where I had to go to bed earlier than usual. This was when the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth came on the telly. My parents were absolutely enthralled with it and the world had to stand still while it was on. I believe the sky could have fallen in and they wouldn't have moved away from that telly till Keith Michell and whoever he was married to that week had faded into that little black dot in the middle of the screen.

One night I particularly remember, I had an earache. You remember those childhood ear aches, the ones where you feel like your whole world's going to explode. The only remedy is a hotwater bottle and a cuddle on Mum's lap and nothing else will do. So, I was allowed downstairs at the witching hour, on the condition that the first hint of a hint of a squeak out of me would signal my banishment back to a cold bed.

Well I sat and I nursed my hotty and felt sorry for myself, and then, as sometimes happened, I got distracted from my woes by the telly. I was far too young to properly understand what was going on, but I remember that voice. It made you want to listen to it. There was something else too, something I was to experience years later, a kind of magnetism, it's hard to describe. Suffice it to say that I found it easier to understand why my parents were so mad about that show, and I found it even easier years later when, as a grown-up, I saw it for myself on video. Even taking the BBC's limited drama budget into consideration, it's a masterly piece of work.

So, skip forward to 1980 and all of a sudden we're being pelted with Captain Beaky and his band, all over the radio, Junior Choice, on television, everywhere you look the little monsters are popping up. Of course, I was far too cool to like them then! There were many other actors, not to say great actors, involved in the Captain Beaky project: Penelope Keith and Peter Sellers are two names that are coming to mind, but the title song is the one that has stayed. Once it had stopped being overplayed, I just couldn't help liking it, and I hear it to this day with a smile, a glow in my heart and a sad little shrug for that uppity kid who I was back then.

So fast forward to 1986, all growed up with a home, a job, hardly any money, independence and a love of the theatre. Oh, anda terrible crush on the gorgeous actor Simon Ward, who just happened to be starring in a play which was premiering in our theatre before transferring to the west end! Swoon swoon! Actually Simon had second billing below a certain Keith Michell. Oh, the Captain Beaky man. Oh well, cool. Should be fun. Here's my money, where's my ticket, yes, middle of the front row please. Oh, the name of the play? Portraits, by William Douglas Home.

So, cut to the night of the play, there I am, quivering in every nerve, waiting for the curtain to go up. The play is about the celebrated portrait painter Augustus John, of whom I had never heard. Simon, swoon swoon, is playing the subject. Three different subjects according to the program. I am expecting to be slightly bored, if truth were told. The lights go down. The audience quietens. The curtain swishes upwards.

Shock! Horror! Simon is playing Field Marshall Montgomery and his voice is almost unrecognizable. It's a staggering piece of acting but, my dear! Horrorsville!

Keith Michell comes on as John. I am not taking much notice through my red haze of disappointed Simon lust.

I notice the round fruity Michell voice is a little raspier than when I last heard it. He strides to the front of the stage and lights a huge pipe, which I'm so close to that I can smell, and smokes it all over Montgomery, who hated smoking.

Suddenly I'm caught. The man is standing about six feet away from me, and you can feel the energy coming off him. He pings the lines out at you, you can hear a pin drop in the theatre, no rustling of sweet papers, no soft whispering.

Scene follows scene. Montgomery is followed by the artist Matthew Smith, a man ravaged by the spoils of war. We all watch spellbound as John brings him back to life in front of our eyes.

During the interval I sit in my seat quietly while everyone else goes off for drinks. I tell myself I have to remember this. It's only a night, a play in a little provincial theatre, but I know I'm seeing something special and closer than I'll probably ever get to be to it again.

I watch the second act, Keith Michell portrays John's fears of the nuclear nightmare, his battle with drink and fear of approaching death. It sounds grim but it wasn't, there were some enormous laughs among the moving scenes. At the end you again could hear a pin drop before the roar of applause.

I went back to see the play again before the end of the run. The audience was smaller and less responsive this time, but the acting just as great and the play just as moving. I'll always be grateful I had the chance to see Keith Michell on stage.

My last memory of him comes from, I think, the mid or late nineties. I remember BBC radio 2 were doing a whole season of full length musicals and my word! They did some whoppers, and they got some real famous names to star in them. Anyway, one of the ones they did was Sondheim's A Little Night Music. This is a rather obscure broadway show, you either like Sondheim or you loathe him. I'm a little of both if the truth were known, but I do rather like this show, it's wickedly witty and has some good songs, including Send In the Clowns.

So I turned on my radio of a Saturday evening to see what kind of job Radio 2 would make of the show and there was Keith Michell, playing the part of Frederick Egermann, the crotchety old Lawyer of fifty something at least who's taken a silly little nineteen-year-old wife who shies away from him like a scared rabbit. Egermann has at least one really, and I do mean really hard patter song. Believe me, with his internal rhyming system and difficult tunes, Sondheim takes no prisoners! I have to tell you, Keith Michell rocked it! He really did! He rocked that whole part. He made me cry later on, he was just wonderful in it.

It's a weird feeling when you're casually looking on your Twitter and you hear that a name, someone you know but don't know has died. I never met Keith Michell, but he's been woven into my life, and its tapestry has been made the richer for the beautiful, warm strand of good memories he has left there for me. Rest in peace, my unknown but dear friend, and thank you.