Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE is an English actor known for his roles in British
television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of
Reginald Perrin, Ben Parkinson in Butterflies and Lionel Hardcastle in As
Time Goes By. Career
After being demobilised from the Royal Marines, Palmer drifted into theatre,
joining a local amateur dramatics society because of a girlfriend. He
became an assistant stage manager at the Q Theatre, by Kew Bridge, then the Grand
Theatre in Croydon. He spent several years touring with a repertory company,
and was an actor in theatre, coming to television and public prominence later
in his career. Early television appearances included a variety of roles
in Granada Television's The Army Game, two episodes of The Baron " and as a
property agent in Cathy Come Home. Getting a major break in John Osborne's
West of Suez at the Royal Court with Ralph Richardson, he then acted in major
productions at the Royal Court and for the National Theatre Company and was
directed by Laurence Olivier in J. B. Priestley's Eden End. Palmer found the
play so boring, however, that it put him off a stage career for good. Many of his
television parts were as a stuffy, middle class buffoon, with a stiff upper
lip, and he is known for deadpan drollery. Two sitcom roles brought him
major attention in the 1970s: the hapless brother-in-law of Reggie Perrin
in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, and the phlegmatic Ben Parkinson in
Carla Lane's Butterflies. He has continued to appear in productions
written by Perrin creator David Nobbs, the latest being the radio comedy The
Maltby Collection. He starred opposite Judi Dench for over
a decade in the BBC situation comedy As Time Goes By. During this time he also
appeared with Dench in other productions, including the James Bond
film Tomorrow Never Dies, in which he portrayed Admiral Roebuck, and Mrs.
Brown, playing Sir Henry Ponsonby to Dench's Queen Victoria.
He played Doctor Price in the Fawlty Towers episode the Kipper and the
Corpse, determined to get breakfast admidst the confusion caused by the
death of a guest and Basil's inept way of handling the emergency.
His distinctive voice has given him a career in advertising and television
voiceovers such as the Audi commercials in which he popularised the phrase
"Vorsprung durch Technik", and as the narrator for the BBC series Grumpy Old
Men and Grumpy Old Holidays. He narrated the audiobook version of Dickens' A
Christmas Carol, released in 2005 as a podcast by Penguin Books. He narrates
Little England. He regularly voices books for the blind.
In the 2006 DVD series The Compleat Angler, Palmer partners Rae Borras in a
series of episodes based on Izaak Walton's 1653 The Compleat Angler.
In 2007 he teamed up with Silksound Books to record The Diary of a Nobody by
George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith as an online audiobook.
In December 2007, Palmer appeared in the role of the Captain in "Voyage of the
Damned", the Christmas special episode of the BBC science-fiction series Doctor
Who. In March 2009 he joined in on a sketch
with the two double acts 'Armstrong and Miller' and 'Mitchell and Webb' for
Comic Relief. In 2011 he played the reactionary
father-in-law of the eponymous clergyman of Rev. in its Christmas episode.
Personal life Palmer was born in London, the son of
Norah Gwendolen and Frederick Charles Palmer, who was a chartered surveyor. He
attended Highgate School, London. In 1963 he married Sally Green in Wilmslow.
The couple have a daughter Harriet and a son, Charles, who is married to actress
Claire Skinner. Palmer lives between Great Missenden and
Wendover, at Lee Common in Buckinghamshire, England. From 2011
onwards he publicly opposed proposals for the High Speed 2 rail network which
would run within 300 yards of his home. Awards and recognition
In the New Year's Honours List published 31 December 2004 he was appointed an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama.
Appearances = Stage=
Eden End by J. B. Priestley at the Royal National Theatre
= Radio= At Home With The Snails
Les Miserables as Inspector Javert High Table, Lower Orders
The Maltby Collection A Murder of Quality
North by Northamptonshire Two Pipe Problems: The Case of the
Missing Meerschaum as Mortimer Tregennis = Television=
= Film= = Recordings=
References External links
Geoffrey Palmer at the Internet Movie Database
Selected performances in Theatre Archive University of Bristol