Peter Bowles (1936-2022) RIP

cyberrich · Post by **cyberrich** » Tue May 17, 2022 6:00 pm

I'm currently watching The Bounder on Forces tv, a sitcom I hadn't heard of before. It was written by Eric Chapell who also wrote the brilliant Rising damp. Peter Bowles is excellent in this. He had a natural flair for comedy. I've always felt that if Patrick Macnee hadn't been available, then Peter Bowles would have made an excellent John Steed.

Frankymole · Post by **Frankymole** » Tue May 17, 2022 6:08 pm

Yes, wasn't he wonderful in To The Manor Born? Great charisma. His characters certainly stack up well against Macnee's Steed on screen. Simon Oates played Steed on stage, but Peter would've been excellent.

mousemeat · Post by **mousemeat** » Tue May 17, 2022 8:13 pm

Frankymole wrote:Yes, wasn't he wonderful in To The Manor Born? Great charisma. His characters certainly stack up well against Macnee's Steed on screen. Simon Oates played Steed on stage, but Peter would've been excellent.

Oates would have been hard to top.....

J.Mac3 · Post by **J.Mac3** » Wed May 18, 2022 10:09 am

Frankymole wrote:Yes, wasn't he wonderful in To The Manor Born? Great charisma. His characters certainly stack up well against Macnee's Steed on screen. Simon Oates played Steed on stage, but Peter would've been excellent.

I wonder if there is any existing video of the play. I would love to see how Oates portrayed the character of Steed. He had an elegant ruthlessness in "You've Just Been Murdered" not unlike Steed in some episodes.

Frankymole · Post by **Frankymole** » Wed May 18, 2022 11:29 am

Simon Oates' character Spelman in The New Avengers' episode Hostage is quite suave too. Neither are as flamboyant as his vaguely Steed-like role as Dr John Ridge in Doomwatch (early 1970s), which reminded me a bit of Derren Nesbitt's similarly opulent Chief Inspector Jordan in Special Branch around the same time. With Steed getting more floral shirts (and hefty sideburns) in the later Tara episodes, I do worry that if The Avengers had carried on into 1970 and 1971 we might've got Steed sporting huge butterfly collar shirts and kipper ties! At least we know he would've avoided flared trousers.

As characters, of course, both John Ridge and Elliot Jordan fulfil the "ruthless" criterion, and I think Steed may have been influential on them; as he no doubt was on hard-edged gentleman adventurers like Jason King and Adam Adamant, and even the third Doctor Who.

mousemeat · Post by **mousemeat** » Wed May 18, 2022 11:38 pm

J.Mac3 wrote:
Frankymole wrote:Yes, wasn't he wonderful in To The Manor Born? Great charisma. His characters certainly stack up well against Macnee's Steed on screen. Simon Oates played Steed on stage, but Peter would've been excellent.
I wonder if there is any existing video of the play. I would love to see how Oates portrayed the character of Steed. He had an elegant ruthlessness in "You've Just Been Murdered" not unlike Steed in some episodes.

no doubt...Macnee and Oates, were two different actors...about 180 degrees from each other

SonofTPMcKenna · Post by **SonofTPMcKenna** » Sat Dec 17, 2022 7:27 pm

Late in the day, but here's a tribute I wrote on Peter Bowles' passing recalling the friendship my dad (T.P. McKenna) and he enjoyed across forty years.

mckennawhitefilms.com/fanmailrichande-951854-199060

Frankymole · Post by **Frankymole** » Sun Dec 18, 2022 12:18 am

That's beautiful, quite made my pre-Christmas! Wonderful to see a previously-unseen family photo. That their friendship was full of laughter is really heart-warming, just what I needed. I wish I knew more about Michael Whitehall's career as an agent, he's mainly famous these days for being Jack Whitehall's dad, I do love his anecdotes like Patrick Macnee sending him an envelope of nude photos which he opened accidentally in public in a restaurant.

mousemeat · Post by **mousemeat** » Sun Dec 18, 2022 8:27 am

Frankymole wrote:That's beautiful, quite made my pre-Christmas! Wonderful to see a previously-unseen family photo. That their friendship was full of laughter is really heart-warming, just what I needed. I wish I knew more about Michael Whitehall's career as an agent, he's mainly famous these days for being Jack Whitehall's dad, I do love his anecdotes like Patrick Macnee sending him an envelope of nude photos which he opened accidentally in public in a restaurant.

some delicious skull duggery-or-horse play....

Frankymole · Post by **Frankymole** » Sun Dec 18, 2022 10:21 am

It seems I have some reading to catch up on: "Whitehall's first book was Shark Infested Waters: Tales of an Actors' Agent, and his son Jack illustrated it. The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) called the book 'a most entertaining memoir' that was 'wittily illustrated'".