“Illusionist with No Illusions”

Not hard to see why John Castle – the sinister Nick Ollanton – has spent much of his career portraying manipulative amen who have a disruptive effect on those around them. An immediate impression, on meeting him at his favourite Italian restaurant, is of a very concentrated presence, vivid blue eyes, a direct gaze and a melodic and almost hypnotic voice.

As Teddy Lloyd, the predatory art teacher in ITV’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1978, he received passionate overtures not only from the romantic Miss Brodie, but also from many of her ‘gels’. He has played both Hamlet

and Gandhi, hardly insignificant personalities, on stage and was seen in the film King David (1985) as the commander of Saul’s armies – not a job for a faint heart.

He is, he says, very proud to be part of Lost Empires. “I must say, I think it’s brilliant. Nick Ollanton is a ghastly desolate creature whose only redeeming qualities are his love for his nephew and his total rejection of any authority other than his own.”

It gave John Castle a doubly satisfying role as both character and stage performer.

“David Hemmingway, our magic adviser, taught me how to perform the magic and I think he’s a genius. He gave me such confidence. Most of the tricks he could set up for me but I had to learn the Chinese rings. It took a long, long time. Finally, I walked up to one of the assistants and said, ’Helen, what about this?’ and I did the trick. She looked absolutely astonished when it worked.

John Castle’s appearance in a television series tends to have a disturbing effect on female viewers, a fact he finds both incredible and disconcerting.

“If I’m playing a scene as Nick Ollanton and I’m waiting for Richard to bring Cissie home, I’m not thinking, ‘Oh, I could look dark and broody here,’

I’m thinking, ‘I can’t wait to get my hands on that stupid girl’.”

Croydon-born Castle grew up in Brighton with no early ambitions to become an actor. “In fact, when the local paper interviewed me after the school play and asked me if I’d considered acting, I thought they were mad,” he says.

An assortment of unremarkable jobs, including work as a waiter and an order clerk, led him eventually to a decision to become a student at Trinity College, Dublin, and an opportunity to join the prestigious Players Theatre. He was auditioned by Ralph Bates and Joanna Van Gyseghem, still firm friends, but just as he was beginning to enjoy himself, he was banned from performing by the junior dean when a woman was discovered in his room after hours.

“It was Maggie, the woman who was to become my wife, but it still got me into trouble,” Castle explains. “It was she who persuaded me to apply to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and I got a scholarship.”

His wife, Maggie Wadey, a writer, has recently adapted Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey for the BBC and is, Castle says, “my most accurate and hones critic. We read each other’s work and I value her opinion more than anything.”

They live in a large, graceful house in a tranquil South London street and have a 19-year old daughter, Shelley, who has recently driven alone across Australia and is currently helping out at a cattle station near Darwin.

“I was terrified to let her go off like that, but you do have to let your children leave. My parents were very good at letting me follow my own path.”

John Castle has a realistic but also affectionate view of the acting profession. “For any role, there are ten actors who could do it as well and two who could do it better. Much of it comes down to luck.”

“In 22 years as an actor, I’ve only ever written two letters asking for work and I don’t think I had a reply to either. I’d like to be a little wealthier because that gives you freedom, but I’d hate not to be able to walk down the street without being recognized. He admits that he has yet to be mobbed by hordes of fans.

“Sometimes people think they know me but they never come up with the right name. I was in a sports shop once and the chap behind the counter suddenly pointed at me. I thought ‘fame at last!’ But he said, ‘You were in that terrible play on TV last night. You were awful!’’. Castle roars with laughter.

“All that serious show business stuff frightens and bores me to death, actually. Also you have to really work at it. He stretches luxuriously. “Anyway, I’m far too lazy and conceited to be a star.”

By Jan Etherington

November, 1986 TVTimes Magazine

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