Thunderbirds are Go returns to ITV this weekend with David Graham once again playing the voice of Aloysius “Nosey” Parker, the chauffeur (and so much more) to Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, a role that he’s played on and off for six decades. Graham’s career has spanned stage, film and TV, playing all manner of characters, and he looked back with Paul Simpson

You’ve played Elgar, and Einstein – and yet you’re still being asked about Nosey Parker…

He’s become an iconic character. I didn’t reckon it would be at the time, but some characters stick in the public’s mind. He’s a comic character and I get asked about him all the time. He’s done very well for me.

Do you have any regrets about any aspect of him?

I have no regrets about creating anything that is successful. I have had a very long career – that’s putting it mildly – and I’ve had lots of highlights working with Laurence Olivier, great theatre work, productions like [Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of] Arturo Ui with Leonard Rossiter. You never forget these things.

I’ve been able to work in the theatre and also do voices on the side, which I’ve had a talent for. I’ve been able to balance the two and it’s been very good for me.

Do you find you’re using different sides of your acting talent when you’re doing voice work rather than stage work?

It’s all part of the same basic talent but in the theatre you’ve got to project to a large audience. I’ve always had a powerful resonant voice. A lot of actors today, brought up on television where you talk softly into a mic, may have problems projecting into a large theatre but I never had that. I was born with a gift for accents, which has stayed me in very good stead.

Is it something you found naturally as a child?

I could always take people off – it’s a knack. It’s all part of your talent, it’s an extra – there are many fine actors who just use themselves, they don’t do voices but I have been lucky: I’ve had this gift and I’ve had opportunities to play many characters and hide behind them in a sense. That’s what character actors do.

Do you find you’re mimicking an accent still or is it so much part of you that you can switch to whatever?

I can switch very easily from one accent to another and I’ve always had a good ear. I used to take off Churchill, because I lived through the War, and people like that. I remember taking off Charles Laughton, a great actor from the 1930s, 40s and 50s. It doesn’t make you a great actor, but it’s a useful tool in your profession.

Yes, it’s fine that someone can reproduce another voice, but if the person doing that can’t bring the acting talent to bear, it’s almost like looking at a fun house mirror – it’s sort of right but not quite.

That’s a very good point. It’s no good you having an ability to do voices without backing it up with the basic talent for acting as well – if you can join the two, you’re laughing.

Were you surprised to be asked to reprise Parker for the new series?

I had a call from ITV when they were planning it, and the two producers – Estelle Hughes and Giles Ridge – came up to Hampstead. I think they wanted to check me out to see if I was still in one piece. We had a coffee and as soon as they saw that I was not walking wounded, and that my voice had stayed pretty much the same over many years, they had no problem. So I did the episodes with dear Rosamund Pike [as Lady Penelope].

Have you recorded everything now?

Yes, it’s what we call a wrap in the film terminology. I think the new series is still going out. When it comes out, I usually get feedback. When you’ve been around as long as I have, it’s nice that you’re not forgotten and you’re able to deliver work when it crops up.

You also did some Parker for Stephen la Rivière for his Supermarionation documentary…

He’s a mine of information as regards Thunderbirds and Gerry Anderson – it’s almost his life’s work. He’s very gifted that way.

For him, you were playing the 1960s version with Sylvia Anderson as Lady Penelope…

She was wonderful. She was not basically an actress but she managed to hit the right note with the voice. I remember being interviewed with her shortly before she died. She and Gerry were divorced, and he married again and I’m in touch with his son Jamie from time to time.

The Parker of the 1960s series and the Parker of Thunderbirds Are Go – do you play him the same way?

Oh yes, exactly. There could have been a bit more comedy between myself and Rosamund – I thought that could have been developed more in the new series.

Of course technically it was streets ahead of the first one, although they did space walks in the first series, and technologically that was a very advanced series. Gerry was an amazing special effects guy and Derek Meddings was a genius – he went on to Star Wars.

Gerry could see things in a way other people didn’t…

He had a touch of genius, Gerry. He was a very quiet man, modest, and I wouldn’t say he was a close friend, but we used to meet quite often at the reunions and I had the occasional lunch with him. I know he admired me because in the book of his life he wrote a very appreciate foreword about me.

You probably know Nosey Parker better than anyone else in the world – how would you feel if you actually met him?

He’d probably be out on licence! Or handcuffed to a warder! I’d be delighted to meet him. He’s almost my alter ego. He’s a part of me and I love his cheeky humour.

I thought up a scenario where he’s walking along and he sees a Rolls-Royce and he sees a lady. It’s got a puncture and that’s how the two met – he manages to fix the car and she invites him back to the manor.

Sometimes in your life and career you come across a character and it just lives on and strikes a chord with the public which I’m extremely grateful for. There’s a kind of magic, a kind of chemistry involved in that.

And that transferred from Sylvia to Rosamund – the give and take, the affection…

In the first episode, when he opened the doors, he said “You called, m’lady?” and we thought it would be much better if he said, “You (with a pause) rang, m’lady?” and that was it ever afterwards. He’s been a good mate of mine, Parker, down the years.

Apart from the how they met scenario, did you suggest anything to the writers on the old or new series?

No, I never met the writers on the new series. I think the history of the character was so rich in itself that I’m not saying scripts wrote themselves, but they didn’t have to create the eccentricities and the humour and the roguishness of Parker. That’s the template of his character.

And there’s a lot more action in the new series for him – Kung Fu Parker is a surprise to us older fans!

The CGI character Parker is much smoother than the original; he was a crusty old ex-con who’s now going straight. I have a very soft spot for the first series – I have a soft series for both. With CGI, they can do anything and I wish Derek Meddings was around to see what they’ve done. There’s been a 60 year gap where the whole business of special effects has advanced amazingly.

I still have a fond remembrance of that first series. Those fifty minute episodes used to cost £100,000 in those days – they spared no expense. Lew Grade, who was running ATV at the time, knew it was a winner.

Did you record multiple episodes together for the new one?

We did two or three episodes together, with Rosamund and most of the other character actors because it’s very useful if you pre-record as a play, so you can act it out and then dub it onto the picture. Peter Jackson, the genius in New Zealand is a huge fan of Thunderbirds, so a lot of stuff was done there [at his WETA Studios] and in the Far East then pulled together in London.

Some of it at the wonderfully named Hackenbacker Studios… named after Brains, maybe?

I was sorry in a way that the producers didn’t ask me to do Brains in the second series. It wasn’t my decision and I wasn’t going to say, “I’m not going to do Parker unless I do Brains.”

You’ve played Einstein, Elgar, Brains, Daleks, Parker… what’s the role that you look back on and think, “Yes, I nailed it.”

Well, I hope I nailed most of my work! But if I had to go back to one production, it’s Arturo Ui with Leonard Rossiter. That was not only a great performance by a great actor, but a great production by Michael Blakemore who I’d worked with on a play called Make or Break by Michael Frayn. I loved doing Einstein – I made one episode of that documentary, and they liked the way it was going so they wrote another episode.

It’s hard to pick out – I love the art of acting and with luck and talent I’ve been able to stay the course and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. If anyone asked me to do anything again, I’ll come running!

 

Thunderbirds are Go airs on ITV and CITV on Saturdays at 8 from May 18th.

Thanks to Hannah Tatum for her help in arranging this interview