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Powell and the glory
 | | Lord of the ward: Robert Powell in Holby City. |
Among the many anecdotes Robert Powell recounts is a personal one about how he met his wife, Babs, more than 30 years ago when she was a dancer with Pan's People from Top of the Pops. He was with a friend at the BBC Club when suddenly the dancers walked in because it was their recording day. Powell was unable to summon up the courage to ask her out.
"I arranged to return the following week, more forewarned and forearmed," he recalls. "I collared the same mate and said to him, 'I haven't got the nerve to ask Babs out on her own, so I'm going to invite all of Pan's People to dinner. I'm paying, so would you come too? That's what I did. I managed to sit next to Babs and I'd persuaded her to leave her car at the BBC so I could give her a lift back home and get another date for the following weekend. We've been together from that day on."
Since 1975, the couple and their two children have lived in north London. For the past 16 years they have been firmly settled in Highgate, where the Heath is "the best place on earth". Powell's on-screen character, nurse Mark Williams in BBC1's hospital drama series Holby City, has an ex-wife, Tricia, and daughter, Chrissie, both of whom work as nurses alongside him on the same ward.
Although the relationship has been fraught, Williams's family mean the world to him. But the arrival of his estranged father is about to crank up the tension. "I can't give too much away," sighs Powell enigmatically. "Chrissie finds Mark's father for him but he has not spoken to his father for some time since they had a major falling out. What she does not know is that the issues between Mark and his father are nothing compared to the issues between Mark's father and Tricia, his daughter-in-law."
This major storyline showing over the next few weeks will lead to further dramatic scenes involving his father, which will be shown next month.
Powell, 61, is filming these at Elstree Studios where we meet for breakfast.
He says: "The marvellous thing about Holby is that we have a great regular cast who are terrific and also guest artists on each episode. I've had a whole stream of old friends come in to play parts - Andrew Sachs, William Gaunt, John Woodvine - the list goes on and on."
Getting into the character has also been a pleasure for Powell. It began with a night shift at Charing Cross Hospital shadowing a duty nurse. "All the gadgets are now second nature to me and we have advisors on set who are quite pleased with my progress. They've said to me, 'Robert, you look as if you know what you're doing.'"
A six-line character breakdown followed by the first few scripts meant Powell was able to piece Williams's together, which is for a two-year stint that began last February.
"The first scene we filmed was in a run-down council flat - totally bare except for a few papers to show that Williams has no possessions. But pride of place on his mantelpiece was a cricket bat signed by Shane Warne. This was his only prized possession apart from his car that had any value to him," explains the "cricket obsessed" PowelI. "I asked if I could make him come from my home town of Salford and let him drive an old Triumph Spitfire that's falling apart to demonstrate that he's trying to hang onto his youth."
Holby often means a 12-hour day but you won't hear Powell moan. He loves the job because it's "unlike anything" he has done before and only accepted it because after five series of The Detectives he was not offered any television that "inspired" him, preferring instead to concentrate on theatre work. Williams's character, he felt, was "credible and believable".
Powell's acting career goes back 40 years to when he abandoned a law degree to become an actor. Early roles in Z Cars, The Wednesday Play and The Italian Job quickly led to the starring role of Toby Warren in the BBC's Doomwatch series in 1970. He was then cast as the leading man in countless stage, television series and film parts.
But it was for the title role in Jesus of Nazareth, made in 1977, that Powell will forever be remembered. This was the most expensive and ambitious television series ever made and boasted an all-star cast featuring Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir Peter Ustinov and Anne Bancroft. The programme, made by Sir Lew Grade, remains one of the biggest success stories in television history and was broadcast internationally.
It was Grade's wife Kathie who had seen Powell's "penetrating eyes" in a television version of Jude the Obscure that led to him getting the part. "I think Kathie was instrumental," considers Powell. "Lew possibly worked on the theory of 'never trust your own judgement' and it was only after Kathie and three others suggested me that he thought I might be worth a look. Lew suddenly decided, 'I'll tell you what, Robert Powell. Let's have a look at him.'"
Powell delivers an affectionate, pitch perfect impersonation of Grade and then mimics Franco Zeffirelli, who directed and wrote a book about the making of Jesus of Nazareth. "Zeffirelli said to me, 'Darling, I've devoted two chapters entirely to you. None of it is true, but the truth is so boring.'"
Powell's choice of highlights are many, varied and arrive with wonderfully entertaining anecdotes laced with humour and told in that rich velvety voice that made him one of the "voiceover kings" when it came to commercials.
He's enjoyed virtually everything he's done, in particular The Thirty-Nine Steps, where he played Richard Hannay. The thrilling climax where Hannay clings on by the fingertips of one hand to the long arm on the Westminster Palace clockface and survives with seconds to spare, was recently voted one of the most memorable scenes in British films by cinemagoers.
But Hannay's famous line during that finale was not in the script. "Totally improvised," admits Powell. "That happened when I was out there dangling and this guy leans down and says, 'Give us your hand,' and I just said, 'Oh, don't be bloody stupid,' as if I'm going to let go now. It's extraordinary how that film has evolved into a classic and has become so popular. We didn't emulate Hitchcock's original. We told the story again, but it's nothing remotely like Hitch's story." Powell later starred in the television series Hannay, which is enjoying a rerun on ITV3.
Other favourites apart from Holby, The Detectives and Jesus of Nazareth include Pygmalion (with Twiggy), Ken Russell's Mahler, Alan Bennett's Single Spies (with Liza Goddard) and the 1975 television series Looking for Clancy, written by Hampstead's Jack Pulman, where he played an unscrupulous journalist.
He's playing a "slightly scruffy" journalist for his next screen role in the drama Colour Me Kubrick, starring John Malkovich and Nolan Hemmings, the son of his great friend David Hemmings, with whom he made three films in the 1970s.
Recent episodes of Holby have shown Williams attempt at reconciliation with his ex-wife. It's difficult not to feel moved while listening to Robert Powell speak of what has made his marriage a strong one.
"Marriage is bloody hard work, but it is worth the battle and you go into bad times, out of bad times and back again," he says tapping his finger on the table. "But eventually, you reach a point where you do realise that the very thing that you liked about that person originally is the thing you want to stick with - that's it. You reach a lovely relationship that is full of love, friendship and humour. It's not to give up. And you have to give each other lots of space - that's essential."
And does he still have to invite all of Pan's People out together to get a date with Babs? "No," he screams with laughter. "Now (with Holby) she complains that I never ask her out on a date."
o Robert Powell stars in Holby City every Tuesday evening at 8pm on BBC1.
o Hannay is on every Thursday evening at 8pm on ITV3.
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