Southend: Sign of a scary headmaster 10/10/2001

 

Brought to you by The Evening Echo:

If autographs are the food of love then write on!

That was the almost Shakespearean request from youngsters looking to collect the signature of popular actor Terrence Hardiman, who is better known as the scary Demon Headmaster in the BBC kids' show of that name.

The classically trained actor was in Southend to take up the role of Malvolio in Twelfth Night at the Palace Theatre, from Wednesday until October 27.

However, Mr Hardiman also turned up at Waterstones bookshop in the High Street to sign copies of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and also of the Demon Headmaster books.

A Palace Theatre spokeswoman said: "Terrence worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company for many years. With him being known as a popular television character, he is keen on introducing a generation of children to Shakespeare and opening their minds to the Bard.

"Lots of children came along to see him and although they thought he was going to be a rather scary figure, they discovered that he is a pretty friendly and affable chap in reality."

 

 

 

Terrence's visit to Prittlewell School, Southend in 1999

 

"Schoolchildren made an extra special effort to be on time for assembly when the Demon Headmaster came to town.

The terrifying head made a one-off visit to youngsters at Prittlewell School, Southend.

Deputy head teacher Bob Fairhurst was allowed to sneak in and take notes on how to control the pupils.

Mr Fairhurst said: "The morning was a great success. The kids loved it. They were able to ask actor Terrence Hardiman how the cameras made his eyes glow and how he managed to appear so tall on TV.

"They were fascinated by everything he had to tell them and they cannot wait until the next series of the Demon Headmaster comes out.

"Mr Hardiman is a very mild mannered man and he gave them all his autograph. He answered all their questions and it was a great morning for the youngsters."

The Demon Headmaster will be appearing at the Cliffs Pavilion from October 5-9."

 

http://www.thisisessex.co.uk/essex/archive/1999/09/14/NEWS20.9ZM.html

 

Markurell-15th February 1996 Chelsea Centre, London  

"Terence Hardiman throws himself with relish into Markurell's cheery villainy. His hair streaked with infernal red, contrasting with the liquid-nitrogen coldness of his eyes, he is almost a pantomime troll-king. Hardiman taps into the same malicious pleasure that informs many of Gavin Richards's performances, rumbling through his enemies' account-books like a force of nature and grinning all the while. There is no need to over-egg the pudding, as he has been directed to do on several occasions, with the mannerism of stopping in mid-sentence and emitting a sudden "What?!" with the frenzy of Harry Enfield's Double-Take Brothers."

Written for The Financial Times. 

Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth, all rights reserved.

 

 

"Racism is pernicious in any walk of life, and there is no better cause than this campaign to root it out."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Officially opened by Terrence in 1996

 

http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/museum/dahl/about_rdgallery.stm

 

 

 

First aired: 10/29/2003
Writer: Nicholas McInerny

A siege is underway… the gunman who took PC Gary Best's dad is now holed up in a building, and when Inspector Gina Gold finds out two elderly residents, one a diabetic in urgent need of medication, are trapped she has to decide whether to let SO19 take him by surprise. When Smithy volunteers himself as a hostage in return for the elderly couple to be released, his actions are totally against protocol, much to Inspector Gold's dismay.

Smithy desperately attempts to talk the gunman down but he's dealing with a deranged man capable of anything. Will Gina Gold put her officer's life at risk by allowing SO19 to storm the building and will Gary Best ever have the chance to make amends with his father?

It's the last day of PC Polly's trial and she takes the stand to try and convince the jury of her innocence. But will she convince the packed courtroom that she did the right thing? And how will Polly's confession that she was set up by Cathy go down with her Sun Hill colleagues, especially when the court hears that Polly's version of events have changed 3 times. Will the jury judge Polly's actions as those of a do-gooder or a highly manipulative person abusing her position of power?.

And forcing crocodile tears on the witness stand is hard work for Cathy Bradford as she heads out with DC Juliet Becker. After arresting a feisty drunk things take a turn for the worse and Juliet finds herself held at knifepoint.

Episode 163

 

 

First published on Tuesday 23 July 2002:

Children's efforts pay off

Actor Terrence Hardiman, who plays the lead role in the BBC children's TV series The Demon Headmaster dropped in at the Manor Preparatory School, in Shippon.

One cheque, for £2,340, was the result of sponsored events, and another, for £2,200, came from a gift day sale. They will go to the charity Children in Leukaemia, in memory of a former pupil who died of the disease at the age of seven

 

“Following their highly successful concerts at the Riverside Studio last December with Julie Covington, The Albion Band are back again, this time with an ambitious multi-media celebration of the River Thames utilising music, dance, poetry, prose and mime. This unique production, research and devised by Ashley Hutchings and Mary Miller, and featuring most of The Albion Band, Maddy Prior, Mary Miller and two actors Terrence Hardiman and James Bree, will be staged at The Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith from March 13th to 17th [1981]. The BBC will be filming this prestigious event for inclusion in their `Lively Arts' series.”

 

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/guvnor/records/thealbionriverhymn.html

 

"the real interest lies in a father-son relationship drawn both from Holcroft's life and Sheridan's plays. Old Mr Dornton, beautifully played by Terrence Hardiman, is torn between explosive condemnation of his wastrel son and uncontrollable affection. Ed Stoppard makes Harry a benevolent rake who throws himself at the absurdly coquettish widow for the sake of her £50,000. It is very much a symptom of late 18th-century drama that, while amorous old women are a subject of mockery, the relationship between father and son is seen as sacrosanct. "

 

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4497768-108884,00.html

 

A few years ago, reviewing The Way Of The World at the Orange Tree, I wrote that "Restoration comedy almost invariably demands a blatantly artificial playing style, whilst staging in the round as here, with no spectator more than two rows away from the stage, supplies an intimacy which might as well have been designed to explode such artifice." On the contrary, it is my pronouncement that has been exploded by Auriol Smith's production, at the same venue, of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Simplicity.

Montagu's 1735 adaptation of Marivaux's The Game Of Love And Chance is brief (less than two hours, even with an interval) and slight, but like a glass-fronted clock, part of the aesthetic delight is in watching the intricate mechanisms tick away together to achieve the desired result. The title she gives her version is both ironic, given the complex of disguises and stratagems acted out before us, and literal, since we know that love will inevitably triumph. (Simplicity is also the name of a solo card game, so the spectator here can watch the dramatic cards fall in such a way that the game works itself out.)

Sir John Hearty suggests that his daughter Belinda and her maid Lucy change places, so that the disguised Belinda may better observe on first meeting the conduct and character of the man proposed for her husband. What Sir John knows, as they do not, is that the suitor Gaymore and his man William have likewise switched, for precisely the same reason. Each of the young gentlefolk loathes their assigned "noble" spouse and falls for their counterpart "servant", wondering how to confess the truth and whether such a match could ever work. Of course, they do and it does.

Sir John oversees matters playfully in the person of Terrence Hardiman, his remarkable eyes in twinkling rather than piercing mode. Gyuri Sárossy as Gaymore tends to favour plausible emotional naturalism a little more than the artifice of the genre, but Octavia Walters as Belinda gets the balance bang on. Tom McKay is a little heavy-handed with William's patrician affectations, but Rebekah Staton, making her professional stage début as Lucy, has a natural comic vivacity that steals every scene she's in. Smith's production as a whole thoroughly merits the phrase "small but beautifully formed".

Written for the Financial Times.

Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.

 

http://www.cix.co.uk/~shutters/reviews/03070.htm