It was a great shock to hear of the death of
Philip Madoc on 5 March.
Although I had known of him for years, through his appearances in
Doctor
Who and various other
film and television roles, I first worked
with him during the recording of
Kaldor City: Storm Mine. My
memory of
our first meeting is that, even before we were formally introduced, he
turned to me with a huge grin and gave me a hug. That was Philip all
over-- always friendly, always keen to get to know new people, visit
new places,
and learn new languages.
Linguistics was one area where Philip and I had a common interest. He
enjoyed learning new languages for the fun of it, but would also use
them to help with his acting. He told me how he had learned Huron for
his role in
The Last of the Mohicans,
which the other actors had thought ridiculous, but that they would then
come to him and say, “could you teach us a few words of
Indian?” when they saw how being able to speak the language
helped his performance. Likewise, when I first met him, he was
rehearsing the role of Shylock, and learning Hebrew so as to understand
the character better. In
Storm Mine,
he was the one who suggested that the Commander should remark that
Blayes’ parents must have been rather romantic to name her
“Elska,” since the word means
“Love” in both
Norwegian and Icelandic.
Every time I saw him, whether working on the
Faction
Paradox series or
at events, it was always as if no time had passed since the last time
we’d met, we’d just be chatting away about
everything.
Philip was also a great one for jokes; he had a terrific memory for
them, and every time we met, he always had new ones, and I’d
always try to learn a few to tell him. “I’ll miss
him” sounds like a fairly trite way to sum up everything
there
was about the man, but there it is in essence: I, and the many other
people who worked with him over the years, will miss him.
Originally
published in
Celestial Toyroom Issue 405/6
