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After Pie in the Sky: Where to See Richard Griffiths

ByDavid

Richard Griffiths
Richard Griffiths

Richard Griffiths was a classically trained character actor who spent two decades as a reliable television guest. His appearances included The Sweeney, Minder, Morse and Lovejoy.

Pie in the Sky then gave him his best-remembered television role: Henry Crabbe, the detective restaurateur. His film career included Uncle Monty in Withnail and I and Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films.

On stage, he won a Tony for playing Hector in The History Boys. He died in 2013, leaving a television record that reveals the range behind those bigger roles.

The Sweeney · S04E14

Jack Or Knave

First broadcast 1978-12-28 · Richard Griffiths as Ronnie Harries

A security van is robbed, a guard is murdered during the payroll snatch, and the same week brings an allegation of corruption against Regan. Griffiths plays Ronnie Harries in the tangle of grudge and procedure, with Barrie Ingham's Chief Superintendent Canning supplying the chilly opposition — the sort who mistakes procedure for principle. A near-final episode of the series that knows exactly what it is doing: putting the Flying Squad's least procedural man in front of its most procedural inquiry and watching him seethe.

Minder · S03E05

Dreamhouse

First broadcast 1982-02-10 · Richard Griffiths as Derek Farrow

House-sitting for a pop star sounds like the softest job Terry has ever taken. Frankie Farrow, a name from the sixties, is away on a night-club engagement — except the engagement is a circuit of working men's clubs and Frankie is properly broke, the kind of broke where the furniture is about to become someone else's. Griffiths is Derek, the brother whose arrival adjusts the picture; the pool, as the episode takes care to establish, proves the least of the surprises.

Inspector Morse · S07E02

The Day of the Devil

First broadcast 1993-01-13 · Richard Griffiths as Canon Humphrey Appleton

The series' most pagan hour: John Peter Barrie, jailed for rape and given to devil-worship, escapes a prison infirmary on a succession of elaborate disguises and taunts the authorities toward Lammas, the festival of ritual fire. Griffiths is Canon Humphrey Appleton, the occult scholar whose accounts of the prisoner's state of mind are as theatrical as they are useful — one of two contrasting experts, opposite Harriet Walter's Dr Esther Martin. A small performance of enormous confidence.

Lovejoy · S04E09

They Call Me Midas

First broadcast 1993-03-07 · Richard Griffiths as Hans Koopman

A fake Klimt, a weekend house party and a scheme to relieve Hans Koopman of a parcel of diamonds — Koopman being the greedy Dutch dealer who once cheated Jim Leonard's wife out of something belonging to her late father. Griffiths is Koopman, the mark: Eric plays the rich gentleman farmer, Tinker poses as a lord and falls for the wrong wife, and everything goes swimmingly until Monday morning arrives just too late.