Timothy West considered himself “a first-rate actor of the second rank”. In truth, he was a great deal better than that, even if he never became as recognisable as some of his contemporaries.
Perhaps that was due to his indifference to film roles (and to film-makers), or because, aside from King Lear, he played few of Shakespeare’s great parts on the stage. With characteristic self-deprecation, he claimed as well that, unlike his wife, Prunella Scales, he did not find acting essential to his life, being fonder in truth of the life that came with being an actor.
What he was good at, however, and what did make his name, was that underrated ability not merely to be someone else but to portray someone real. As