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Minder stars reunited - Radio Times, May 2007 |
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Christopher Middleton listens in as Dennis Waterman and George Cole reminisce about their time on Minder.
"Bacon and egg, fish 'n' chips,
Arthur and Terry from
Minder… You couldn't
get a more British list of
double acts than that, and here we
are, meeting Minder's endearingly
slippery Arthur Daley (George Cole)
and put-upon bodyguard Terry
McCann (Dennis Waterman),
last-known address the Winchester
Club.
The reason for the reunion is that,
18 years after they last appeared on
screen together, Cole is joining New
Tricks regular Waterman as a guest
star, playing
a prominent businessman and key
witness to a murder in the 1950s.
Despite the passage of time,
the memories are as fresh as the
carnations in the lapel of Arthur
Daley's camelhair coat. As the RT
photographer arrives, Cole, 82, is
halfway through an anecdote that
ends "But he never said the giraffe
would lick me!" (long story, all about
filming in a zoo). His old mucker
Waterman, 59, has his own tales:
the guest stars (Paul Eddington,
Honor Blackman, Adam Faith), the
directors they liked (and didn't like),
and the west London locations
(Shepherd's Bush, Wormwood
Scrubs - all the glamour spots).
"For some strange reason,
we had offices at some sort of
golf association in Putney,"
says Waterman. "That's right,"
chimes in Cole. "We'd eat in that
Greek restaurant, wouldn't we?"
"That's right. The one where they
planned the Great Train Robbery."
And
Arthur and Terry's hangout, the
Winchester Club, was based on a club
in north rather than west London.
"It was a real gangsters' place in
Chalk Farm that we were taken to
one day by Leon [Griffiths, Minder's
creator]," recalls Cole, with a Daleyesque
shudder. "I remember asking
one of the blokes there what sort
of work he did, and he just went
'Removals'. We didn't stay long."
It also transpires (a little-known
fact) that both Cole and Waterman
had worked together before they
did Minder, but just didn't know it.
"We were on set one day, and
Dennis was in the car, chatting up this
girl," recalls Cole. "He started telling
her how he'd been in this [1971] film
called Fright, at which point I said,
'Hang on, I was in Fright, and I never
saw you.' Turned out he was playing
the corpse lying face-down in the hall,
and I'd stepped over him!"
But within ten years (Minder
began in 1979), the partnership had
become one to be reckoned with.
"We made a point of always going
on set together," says Cole. "It meant
neither of us got the blame for being
late. And we never asked permission
to change a line, did we?"
"No way," confirms his co-star.
"I remember making up this line,
'Clock the geezer in the Wind in the
Willows waistcoat' - it got a mention
in a TV review talking about how
good the scripts were."
So what contributions, then - apart
from sharing more than 70 episodes
of possibly Britain's all-time most
popular comedy drama - have the
two Minder stars made to each
other's lives? Cole doesn't hesitate.
"I can tell you exactly," he replies.
"I taught him how to do The Times
crossword - and he taught me how
to swear in public."
His co-star considers this for
a few seconds. "Yeah," he grins, over
a pint. "That sounds about right."
**
Now take a look at our full New Tricks guide.
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