Four King Lears, three Churchills, two Macbeths, Stalin, Gorbachev, Thomas Beecham, Edward VII; Danny Dyer’s dad in EastEnders the same year as a stint in Coronation Street; 10 series of Great Canal Journeys with his wife of 61 years, Prunella Scales. Timothy West was perilously close to being a national treasure. Though in no way grand, he was the man you went to for Important People, mostly real and always played without comment. And he was also our dad.
As the son and grandson of actors, he remained a fan of performers doing other things. Before a chance encounter with Harold Hobson at the first ever National Student Drama Festival made up his mind, he sold office furniture and…