Terence Hardiman
Encyclopedia
Terrence Hardiman is an English actor
, sometimes wrongly credited as Terence Hardiman. He is best known for playing The Demon Headmaster
in the children's television series of the same name, and also for Reinhardt in the 1970s drama series Secret Army.
-era German military personnel (Secret Army and Colditz
) and British officers (When the Boat Comes In
), police inspectors (Juliet Bravo
and Softly, Softly
), doctors (Home to Roost
, The Royal
), barristers (Crown Court
and The Brittas Empire
), judges (The Bill
and The Courtroom
), Father Radulfus (Cadfael
), and of course a headmaster. He also played Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
in Richard Attenborough
's Gandhi
.
Major Reinhardt, (Hardiman's role in Secret Army) was the (fictional) head of the Luftwaffe
(German Air force) police and as such often provided a foil to Clifford Rose
's more brutal S.S. Chief, Kessler. As with many of the characters in Secret Army, Reinhardt was not a one-dimensional baddie, but a rounded character who often questioned his own motives and methods. The actor's portrayal allowed the viewer to sympathise with this character. In 1990 he played a two-dimensional German officer, General Stuckler, in the final series of London Weekend Television
's Wish Me Luck
.
The Demon Headmaster was a children's television drama series which proved popular with adults as well, and which ran to three series from 1996 to 1998. Hardiman played a truly villainous headmaster in pantomime style, complete with glowing eyes.
He also had a starring role as Charles Pooter
in the 1979 television adaptation of George
and Weedon Grossmith
's Diary of a Nobody
, a role which shows his versatility more than the succession of officers he usually portrays.
Hardiman's other recurring role was as Brother Cadfael's boss, Abbot Radulfus, in the television series. Joining him throughout the series as Prior Robert was Michael Culver, who had played his predecessor Major Brandt in Secret Army.
A notable small role Hardiman played was a version of the Sergeant Wilson
character from Dad's Army
in an episode of time travel comedy Goodnight Sweetheart
, called "Don't Get Around Much Any More", in which Nicholas Lyndhurst
's character Gary Sparrow goes back in time to a 1940s bank and encounters characters called Mainwaring and Wilson. Hardiman's portrayal was a keenly observed impersonation of John Le Mesurier
's own performance, incorporating many of the tics and mannerisms of the original. Hardiman is also famous for his role of Chief Wizard Egbert Hellibore in four episodes of the television series The Worst Witch
.
Hardiman appeared in the second series of The Worst Week of My Life
, the comedy series starring Ben Miller
. Another notable recent role was as a devious Swiss murder victim in an episode of crime mystery series Jonathan Creek
.
He has also appeared in the daily soap Doctors on BBC1 at 3 April 2009 and in the Yorkshire drama Heartbeat as John Upton in one episode.
In 2009 he appeared in a 3D film for the BFI called Radio Mania directed by British artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard
.
Hardiman appeared as Hawthorne in the Doctor Who
episode The Beast Below
on 10 April 2010.
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, sometimes wrongly credited as Terence Hardiman. He is best known for playing The Demon Headmaster
The Demon Headmaster (TV series)
The Demon Headmaster is a British television series based on the children's books by Gillian Cross of the same name. Made for CBBC, the drama was first broadcast between 1996 and 1998...
in the children's television series of the same name, and also for Reinhardt in the 1970s drama series Secret Army.
Career
Hardiman is often seen playing authority figures, and has played NazisNazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
-era German military personnel (Secret Army and Colditz
Colditz (TV series)
Colditz is a British television series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974.The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to...
) and British officers (When the Boat Comes In
When the Boat Comes In
When the Boat Comes In is a British television period-drama produced by the BBC between 1976 and 1981.The series stars James Bolam as Jack Ford, a First World War veteran who returns to his poverty-stricken town of Gallowshield in the North East of England in the 1920s.The memorable traditional...
), police inspectors (Juliet Bravo
Juliet Bravo
Juliet Bravo is a British television series, which ran on BBC1 between 1980 and 1985. The theme of the series concerned a female police inspector who took over control of a police station in the fictional town of Hartley in Lancashire.-Programme name:...
and Softly, Softly
Softly, Softly (TV series)
Softly, Softly is a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC 1 from January 1966. It centred around the work of regional crime squads, plain-clothes CID officers based in the fictional region of Wyvern - supposedly in the Bristol and Chepstow area of the UK...
), doctors (Home to Roost
Home to Roost
Home to Roost is a British television sitcom produced by Yorkshire Television in the 1980s. Written by Eric Chappell, it starred John Thaw as Henry Willows and Reece Dinsdale as his 18-year-old son Matthew....
, The Royal
The Royal
The Royal is a British medical drama series produced by ITV. The show comprises one hour episodes which were normally first aired on ITV in the Sunday early evening slot....
), barristers (Crown Court
Crown Court (TV series)
Crown Court was an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984....
and The Brittas Empire
The Brittas Empire
The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Richard Fegen and Andrew Norriss. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre....
), judges (The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
and The Courtroom
The Courtroom
The Courtroom is a British legal drama created by Phil Redmond, which aired between June and December 2004.The programme was notable for starring many former British soap stars, particularly those who starred in Redmond's other productions Brookside and Hollyoaks....
), Father Radulfus (Cadfael
Cadfael
Brother Cadfael is the fictional main character in a series of historical murder mysteries written between 1977 and 1994 by the linguist-scholar Edith Pargeter under the name "Ellis Peters". The character of Cadfael himself is a Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey, in western England,...
), and of course a headmaster. He also played Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
in Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough
Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough , CBE is a British actor, director, producer and entrepreneur. As director and producer he won two Academy Awards for the 1982 film Gandhi...
's Gandhi
Gandhi (film)
Gandhi is a 1982 biographical film based on the life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led the nonviolent resistance movement against British colonial rule in India during the first half of the 20th century. The film was directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. They both...
.
Major Reinhardt, (Hardiman's role in Secret Army) was the (fictional) head of the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
(German Air force) police and as such often provided a foil to Clifford Rose
Clifford Rose
Clifford Rose is a British classical actor.He was born in Herefordshire. He was educated at the King's School, Worcester and King's College London, before appearing in rep and with the Royal Shakespeare Company....
's more brutal S.S. Chief, Kessler. As with many of the characters in Secret Army, Reinhardt was not a one-dimensional baddie, but a rounded character who often questioned his own motives and methods. The actor's portrayal allowed the viewer to sympathise with this character. In 1990 he played a two-dimensional German officer, General Stuckler, in the final series of London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
's Wish Me Luck
Wish Me Luck
Wish Me Luck is a British television drama about the exploits of British women undercover agents during the Second World War. The series was made by London Weekend Television for the ITV network between 1987 and 1989 and created by Lavinia Warner and Jill Hyem, who had previously produced and...
.
The Demon Headmaster was a children's television drama series which proved popular with adults as well, and which ran to three series from 1996 to 1998. Hardiman played a truly villainous headmaster in pantomime style, complete with glowing eyes.
He also had a starring role as Charles Pooter
Charles Pooter
Charles Pooter is a fictional character, the supposed author and leading character of George and Weedon Grossmith's comic novel Diary of a Nobody.Pooter is a middle aged and middle class City of London clerk with ideas above his station...
in the 1979 television adaptation of George
George Grossmith
George Grossmith was an English comedian, writer, composer, actor, and singer. His performing career spanned more than four decades...
and Weedon Grossmith
Weedon Grossmith
Walter Weedon Grossmith , better known as Weedon Grossmith, was an English writer, painter, actor and playwright, best known as co-author of The Diary of a Nobody with his famous brother, music hall comedian and Gilbert and Sullivan star, George Grossmith...
's Diary of a Nobody
Diary of a Nobody
The Diary of a Nobody, an English comic novel written by George Grossmith and his brother Weedon Grossmith with illustrations by Weedon, first appeared in the magazine Punch in 1888 – 89, and was first printed in book form in 1892...
, a role which shows his versatility more than the succession of officers he usually portrays.
Hardiman's other recurring role was as Brother Cadfael's boss, Abbot Radulfus, in the television series. Joining him throughout the series as Prior Robert was Michael Culver, who had played his predecessor Major Brandt in Secret Army.
A notable small role Hardiman played was a version of the Sergeant Wilson
Sergeant Arthur Wilson
Sergeant The Honourable Arthur Wilson is a fictional Home Guard platoon sergeant and bank clerk portrayed by John Le Mesurier on the BBC television situation comedy Dad's Army....
character from Dad's Army
Dad's Army
Dad's Army is a British sitcom about the Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft and broadcast on BBC television between 1968 and 1977. The series ran for 9 series and 80 episodes in total, plus a radio series, a feature film and a stage show...
in an episode of time travel comedy Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart
Goodnight Sweetheart is a sitcom that ran for six series on BBC1 from 1993 to 1999. It stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as Gary Sparrow, an accidental time traveller who leads a double life after discovering a time portal allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the...
, called "Don't Get Around Much Any More", in which Nicholas Lyndhurst
Nicholas Lyndhurst
Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Rodney Trotter in Only Fools and Horses, Gary Sparrow in Goodnight Sweetheart, and as Adam Parkinson in Carla Lane's series Butterflies...
's character Gary Sparrow goes back in time to a 1940s bank and encounters characters called Mainwaring and Wilson. Hardiman's portrayal was a keenly observed impersonation of John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...
's own performance, incorporating many of the tics and mannerisms of the original. Hardiman is also famous for his role of Chief Wizard Egbert Hellibore in four episodes of the television series The Worst Witch
The Worst Witch
The Worst Witch is a series of children's novels written and illustrated by Jill Murphy and published by Puffin Books. The first book was published in 1974. They have become some of the most outstandingly successful titles on the Young Puffin paperback list and have sold more than 4 million copies....
.
Hardiman appeared in the second series of The Worst Week of My Life
The Worst Week of My Life
The Worst Week of My Life is a British comedy television series, first broadcast on BBC One between March and April 2004. A second series was aired between November and December 2005 and a three-part Christmas special, The Worst Christmas of My Life was shown during December 2006...
, the comedy series starring Ben Miller
Ben Miller
Bennet Evan "Ben" Miller is an English comedian, actor and director. He is perhaps best known as one half of comedy double act Armstrong and Miller, along with Alexander Armstrong. Together the pair wrote and starred in Channel 4 sketch show Armstrong and Miller, and the more recent BBC television...
. Another notable recent role was as a devious Swiss murder victim in an episode of crime mystery series Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek is a British mystery series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. Primarily a crime drama, the show is also peppered with broadly comic touches...
.
He has also appeared in the daily soap Doctors on BBC1 at 3 April 2009 and in the Yorkshire drama Heartbeat as John Upton in one episode.
In 2009 he appeared in a 3D film for the BFI called Radio Mania directed by British artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard
Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard
Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard are British artists who create re-enactments of cultural and art historical events. Forsyth was born in Manchester in 1973, Pollard in Newcastle in 1972.-Life and work:...
.
Hardiman appeared as Hawthorne in the Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
episode The Beast Below
The Beast Below
"The Beast Below" is the second episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was written by showrunner Steven Moffat and broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 10 April 2010....
on 10 April 2010.