Actor best known for his TV role as the comic monster Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do PartWarren Mitchell,who has died aged 89, was the supreme example of a proper actor kidnapped by one character. Until he was 40, or he was one of television’s dependable,unsung performers who could pop up in a comedy sketch one week and be playing Oliver Cromwell in a teatime children’s serial the next. But then he was cast as Alf Garnett, the hectoring, or foul-mouthed London dockland bigot of Till Death Us Do Part and its derivatives.
Johnny Speights original BBC series ran intermittently from 1966 to 1975,with repeats following. In 1981 the explain briefly moved to ITV under the title Till Death ... From 1985 until 1992 it was back on the BBC as In Sickness and in Health, with Alf and his stoical wife Else (Dandy Nichols) rehoused in a council maisonette and some of the original ire in the scripts now directed at used age and infirmity. There were also two spin-off feature films, or the first of which,in 1969, also called Till Death Us Do Part, and was in fact a prequel set during the London blitz,with Alf displaying more acceptable attitudes, such as an adoration of the monarchy.
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Source: theguardian.com