Bryan Pringle

Character actor of diverse talents and down-to-earth looks

Bryan Pringle, actor: born Glascote, Staffordshire 19 January 1935; married 1958 Anne Jameson (died 1999; one son, one daughter); died London 15 May 2002.

Two television roles, more than 20 years apart, demonstrated the diverse talents of Bryan Pringle. He became a household face, if not name, as "Cheese and Egg" in Jack Rosenthal's sitcom The Dustbinmen. The comedy was crude, offensive and abhorred by "Clean Up TV" campaigners, but it was also very funny.

Cheese and Egg, complete with beret and round-rimmed spectacles, was leader of the crew of Thunderbird Three, a corporation lorry cruising the streets of a northern town. The group's misadventures, observations on life and schemes to avoid work formed the storylines in a programme whose first series of six episodes topped the television ratings every week.

Later, in the original 1991 mini- series of Prime Suspect, Pringle's scenes as the pathologist Felix Norman set the tone for the gritty police drama featuring Helen Mirren as a woman detective tackling horrific murders and facing discrimination from male officers. The opening shots showed the bearded Norman at the scene of a prostitute's murder, recording his initial impressions, before exclaiming: "OK, OK, lads. Mortuary!" Back on home ground, he explained matter-of-factly to investigating officers the injuries sustained by the mutilated woman, and the likely murder weapon – a screwdriver.

Pringle's craggy, down-to-earth looks made him a perfect character actor. Born in Staffordshire, the son of a vicar, in 1935, but brought up in Lancashire, he trained at RADA, where he won the Bancroft Gold Medal (1954). He then gained a good grounding in the classics with the Old Vic Theatre company (1955-57).

Alongside regular stage work, he landed occasional parts in films, playing policemen in The Challenge (starring Jayne Mansfield, 1960), Berserk! (with Joan Crawford, 1967) and Diamonds for Breakfast (1968). He also had small roles in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).

Between straight parts in a string of television plays, Pringle appeared in the three-part BBC surreal sitcom Three Rousing Tinkles (1966), acting the first of several people to be found by a suburban couple in their spare room on returning from shopping.

Then came The Dustbinmen, which ran to three series (1969-70) after growing out of Jack Rosenthal's 1968 play There's a Hole in Your Dustbin, Delilah, with Pringle taking over the role played by Jack MacGowran in Granada Television's "Playhouse" production. Other members of the cast were John Woodvine as the depot boss Bloody Delilah (later acted by Brian Wilde), Graham Haberfield as the soccer fanatic Winston, John Barrett as "Smellie" Ibbotson, Trevor Bannister as Heavy Breathing and Tim Wylton as the dim-witted Eric.

Pringle subsequently sported a moustache for Roy Clarke's sitcom The Growing Pains of PC Penrose (1975) to play Sergeant Flagg, under whose wing the innocent young probationer (Paul Greenwood) was taken. His duties changed to that of the senior waiter, Charles Spooner, when he starred in Room Service (1979), created by Jimmy Perry and set in the five-star Prince Henry Hotel in London.

Then, in The Management (1988), featuring the comedians Hale and Pace as the Two Rons in a sitcom developed from their stand-up characterisations, Pringle joined Vilma Hollingberry to play Mr and Mrs Crusty, part of the team hired by the gangland pair to run a nightclub they had inherited in a seedy part of London.

Pringle's sidekick in the comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in the North (starring Bernard Hill, 1994) was a revolting dog called Pablo. As Mr Bebbington, a Yorkshireman living in the annexe of a working-class family's home and occasionally dispensing words of wisdom, he once told the family's teenaged daughter: "You don't want to rush your forbidden fruit. If you drink, smoke and have sex at 16, all you've got to look forward to is driving a heavy goods vehicle."

On television, his straight roles included Mr Monk in The Pallisers (1974), Mr Garland in The Old Curiosity Shop (1975), Pistol in BBC productions of Henry IV, Part II (1979) and Henry V (1979), the butler Smith in A Dance to the Music of Time (1997) and Raggles in Vanity Fair (1998). He was particularly moving in the "Play of the Week" On Giant's Shoulders (1979), teaming up with Judi Dench as a middle-aged, childless couple who adopt a black boy affected by Thalidomide.

He also acted Arthur Pringle in the second series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet (1986) and was one of the members of a struggling 1930s touring concert party in Alan Plater's nine-part television adaptation of J.B. Priestley's novel The Good Companions (1980-81) .

Pringle's other films included The Boy Friend (Ken Russell's homage to Hollywood musicals, 1971), Brazil (1985) and American Friends (1991). Among his many theatre roles were that of the blaspheming father in Billy (starring Michael Crawford at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1974), Herod in The Passion (directed by Bill Bryden at the National Theatre), Smudger in The Long and the Short and the Tall (directed by Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court Theatre), Stanley in The Birthday Party (a Royal Shakespeare Company production at the Aldwych Theatre, directed by the play's author, Harold Pinter) and Alfred Doolittle in a national tour of My Fair Lady (directed by Simon Callow).

Anthony Hayward