NEVER WALK ALONE (REMEMBERING MICHAEL ANGELIS)

Some actors are lucky to strike a chord with a great director or equally great writer.

And so it was with the Liverpudlian actor Michael Angelis whose collaborations with Alan Bleasdale produced some of the finest works ever created for British television.

Some audiences will remember him as the rabbit mad brother Lucien in Carla Lane and Myra Taylor's sitcom 'The Liver Birds' or know him as the narrator who took over from Ringo Starr on 'Thomas the Tank Engine'.

However his iconic role was surely as Chrissie Todd, the beating heart of Alan Bleasdale's  'The Boys from the Black Stuff' and it is that part that he should really be remembered for.

Few actors before or since have essayed the disintegration of an unemployed man in quite the same way as Angelis managed in Bleasdale's

searing indictment of the abandonment of the British working class.

With his droll Scouse accent, Angelis was adept at squeezing comedy out of most scenes.

However 'The Boys from the Black Stuff' showed how effective he could also be handling heart wrenching drama.

Born in the Dingle area of Liverpool, Angelis trained as an actor in Glasgow at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

There he was exposed to the work of Brendan Behan and Maxim Gorky but like a lot of actors of his generation in Liverpool he soon found work in the city's cutting edge Everyman Theatre.

One of his early productions was alongside Alison Steadman, Jonathan Pryce and Polly Hemingway in an acclaimed 1971 play by EA Whitehead 'The Foursome' about two couples who go to the beach.

The play featured a lot of nudity and salty language on a stage covered in sand but it was typical of the Everyman's boundary pushing output.

Angelis' first taste of television came in 1972 with appearances in the BBC's thriller 'The Scobie Man' with Maurice Roeves, ITV's soap opera 'Coronation Street' and BBC2's 'The Thirty Minute Theatre' which became a testing ground for new writers like Dennis Potter, Jack Rosenthal and John Mortimer.

His brother Paul also forged a career as an actor, landing a role as PC Bruce Bannerman for six episodes of the popular BBC1 police series 'Z Cars'.

Angelis followed suit, appearing in two episodes of the show in 1972 and 1974.

Over the years, there would be appearances in hit shows like ITV's 'Crown Court', the sitcom 'Robin's Nest', 'Minder,' The Professionals', 'Reilly, Ace of Spies,' 'Boon,' 'A Touch of Frost,' 'Heartbeat,' 'The Bill,' 'Midsomer Murders,' 'September Song' and as a villain in 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'.

He would also surface in BBC2's Italian comedy 'The Little World of Don Camilio,' and BBC1's 'Bergerac', Carla Lane's 'Bread', 'Lovejoy,' 'Casualty,' 'Common as Muck,' 'Between The Lines', 'Holby City', 'Merseybeat' and 'Playing The Field.

There would also be occasional work in comedy shows like 'Wood and Walters', 'The Russ Abbot Show' and 'Harry Enfield and Chums'.

Angelis, though, would first draw national attention for his performance as Lucien, the rabbit obsessed brother of Elizabeth Estensen's Carol Boswell who was introduced in the fifth series of the hit sitcom.

He would reprise the role in the 1996 revival. 

There was also an appearance as a nightclub owner called Stavros in Howard Schuman's award winning ITV musical drama 'The Rock Follies' with Julie Covington, Rula Lenska and Charlotte Cornwell.

However in 1980 he was to land the role of Chrissie Todd in 'The Black Stuff' - an Alan Bleasdale scripted TV movie under BBC1's 'Play for Today' banner which focused on the adventures of five Liverpudlians laying tarmac in Middlesbrough.

Also featuring Tom Georgeson, Alan Igbon, Bernard Hill and Peter Kerrigan, Bleasdale was convinced the play had the makings of a TV drama and wrote to David Rose, the head of the BBC's English Regions Drama pitching the idea.

The result was an instant five part TV classic 'The Boys from the Black Stuff' which hit a nerve in Margaret Thatcher's Britain amid the economic turmoil brought about by the decline of the shipyards and other manufacturing sectors.

With Julie Walters on board as Chrissie's wife Angie, the series featured many iconic TV moments.

And while Bernard Hill's Yosser Hughes became something of a cult hero, many of those moments featured Angelis including the poignant episode 'Shop Thy Neighbour' in which his character has a blazing row with Angie culminating in him shooting the geese he keeps in his backyard.

ITV had been expected to sweep the BAFTAs with its handsome adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited'.

However 'The Boys from the Black Stuff' would deservedly scoop the Best Drama award.

Angelis would also have the lead role in the Beasdale scripted Film 4 movie 'No Surrender' with Bernard Hill, Ray McAnally, James Ellis, Joanne Whalley and Elvis Costello 

Directed by Peter Smith, it took a rare, comic look at sectarian division in Liverpool.

Angelis played the owner of a function hall on waste ground that is accidentally double booked on New Year's Eve by two rival groups of senior citizens from Liverpool's Protestant Orange Order and the Catholic Irish nationalist tradition.

It was a rare big screen outing for him - one of his first movie roles was in Ralph Thomas's 1979 heist film 'A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square' with David Niven, Oliver Tobias, Elke Sommer and Gloria Grahame - and earned decent reviews.

Angelis had also been in Peter Frazer Jones' 1980 big screen version of the popular ITV sitcom 'George and Mildred'.

In subsequent years, there would be supporting roles in the 2003 Lee Donaldson movie comedy 'The Virgin of Liverpool' with Ricky Tomlinson, Imelda Staunton and Johnny Vegas and as a priest in Joe Scott's 2012 shotgun wedding musical drama 'First Time Loser'.

In 1994, he would join Frank Skinner, Prunella Scales and Imelda Staunton in Ian McPherson's 1994 one-off TV short film 'Woodcock'.

Angelis would also appear as the friend of Michael Palin's special school principal Jim Nelson in another classic Bleasdale drama 'GBH' with Robert Lindsay, Julie Walters and Lindsay Duncan for Channel 4.

However in 1991, he would become known to families as the narrator of the 'Thomas The Tank Engine' animated television series and it's DVD and video game spin-offs.

For many, Angelis was the voice they grew up listening to during their infant years.

Angelis was not one of those actors who courted celebrity.

Married twice - he divorced Helen Worth, who plays Gail Platt in 'Coronation Street' in 2001 ten years after their wedding and subsequently wed Jennifer Khalastchi - he did not do many interviews.

However it was clear in the hours after his death just how respected he was.

Comedian Matt Lucas, writers Jack Thorne and Simon Blackwell were among those who led tributes.

For many, he probably vied with Ricky Tomlinson as the quintessential Scouse actor to grace our screens.

But he may also have been one of the most underrated character actors to come out of Merseyside and England.

(Michael Angelis passed away at the age of 76 on May 30, 2020)