(5 March 1966 - 5 April 2021)
The passing of that fine actor Paul Ritter at only 54 from a brain tumour is particularly saddening. He was clearly destined for further greatness in the future. Although he worked on many films, it was on television that he made his mark. He will be remembered for playing Martin Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. His outrageous behaviour as the appalling father with a love for removing his shirt, an addiction to tomato ketchup and his constant reference to “lovely bit of squirrel” at the dinner table, allowed the actor to create a memorably hilarious figure. However, Ritter did not only play the silliest of comedy roles, but was also adept in the most serious of parts such as Anatoly Dyatlov in the brilliant TV mini-series Chernobyl, for which he and the rest of the personnel won a CinEuphoria Award. He was also prominent in other prestigious TV series such as Lark Rise to Candleford, The Game, Great Expectations, Mapp & Lucia, No Offence, Resistance, The Capture, Cold Feet, Belgravia, etc. Paul Ritter was born in Gravesend, Kent, to school secretary Joan Mooney and toolmaker Ken Adams. On stage he worked at the National Theatres in London and Hamburg, the Royal Court, The Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first film was G:MT Greenwich Mean Time in 1999 and he went on to appear in The Libertine (with Johnny Depp), Son of Rambow (with Will Poulter), Hannibal Rising (with Gaspard Ulliel), The Other Man (with Liam Neeson), Quantum of Solace (with Daniel Craig), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (as Eldred Worple), Sam Taylor Johnson’s Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, Kevin Macdonald’s The Eagle (with Channing Tatum), Their Finest (with Gemma Arterton), and Ron Howard’s Inferno (with Tom Hanks). His last film is John Madden’s Operation Mincemeat with Colin Firth, which is awaiting a release. Paul Ritter was married to Polly Radcliffe and they have two sons, Frank and Noah.
MICHAEL DARVELL
