‘Stun Guns and Cross-Dressing Crime Fighters’
That would make a fantastic title for a book, wouldn’t it?
Imagine a bleak space outpost in the farthest reaches of the cosmos, a despicable murder, loads of clues and enter the hero of the piece; a Northern-accented, cross-dressing Columbo character who saves the day! Who could play that I wonder? Well, to be honest, that man isn’t with us anymore and the performing world has watched another talented candle blown out far too early.
We know ‘Paul Valentine Birkby’ as that crusading anti-hero of the stars, and yes, that amazing performance of his Columbo-esque character and (later) a detective in a dress on 'Whodunnit?' in the 1970s. I love that name ‘Valentine’, don’t you? It’s not a name that crops up much these days; it suggests a derring-do adventurer and a character who finds romance at every turn.
Paul Darrow was a legend; I don’t use that term readily because it’s over-used in the world of us ‘sci-fi’ fans. We seem to reach for it every time a ‘Big’ name departs this mortal coil. But until those few years when notoriety found him in ‘Blake's 7’, Paul wasn’t that household name emblazoned in lights across your screen. But if you trace his television appearance timeline, it was none too shabby, in fact worthy of a professional.
I was scrolling through my Facebook account in the early hours at work when I first saw the news of his death, I stopped, really stopped and time stood still for a couple of heartbeats. A horrible fear and darkness filled that area in my head which holds those valued childhood memories and a little light in the corner of my archive went out never to be relit.
Paul was popping up all over the shop in the late 60s / early 70s; I remember him appearing for about 10 minutes in a black and white episode of 'Special Branch' from 1969 as a QC in a Coroners Court giving one of the sharpest performances I’ve seen. He rips up Wesley Pithey’s character for arse-paper before painting him into to the proverbial corner, a master class of delivery. And that’s the point with Paul, however small the piece, he gave it ‘the beans’. No half-measures, he invested into every part. This clearly held him in mind for a lot of casting types and directors.
I loved that contrast of a very ice-cold unfeeling performance as Captain Hawkins in ‘The Silurians’ opposite the warm friendly aspect of the Brigadier. This was defined for me when he gets a clearly shocked scientist to help him move the dead body of a soldier. Paul was playing a fighting man, who was used to the sight of death and his cold callous exterior would be immune to the sight of the fallen, it didn’t even cross his mind that the scientist would be repulsed by the sight of death.
Paul could play ‘Steely’ almost verging on the edge of inhuman characters, but then the next week we could see him playing an attention seeking, vulnerable person crying out for help in an unconventional manner such as he played in an episode of Z Cars called ‘Pieces’ from 1973.
I could go into his singularly most extraordinary performance in ‘Whodunnit?’, but Lisa and Andrew have done a fantastic job of this in their tribute to Paul on their latest Videocast.
But I owe Paul a heck of a lot, the character of Kerr Avon is where I get my sharp wit and sarcasm.
No, really!
It's 1978, it's BBC1 and 'Blake’s 7' was on our screens. Other than the fact that I had a massive crush on Jenna, I learnt a great skill from Paul’s portrayal of Avon which is part of my makeup today. No, it’s not an unfeeling logical megalomaniac attitude towards life, or an unquenchable greed for other people’s money or wealth, it's sarcasm, honestly!
He taught me to be sharp witted and very sarcastic in times of stress. It’s true. It's one of those moments in life that I can nail down to one single influence, Paul’s performance.
Now I could have listed his appearances on so many other TV Shows, audio performances, stage plays and adverts flogging mobility scooters, I just wanted to say what Paul did for me, he actually gave me a life-long character trait that is here to stay till the day I sign out. For someone to place that seed in a 7 year old’s brain through their performance speaks volumes, if not whole libraries about their ability to reach out with their acting abilities.
I never met Paul, but I would have loved to have had the chance, in clips I saw of him he was smiling, generous to everyone and to think that wonderful booming laugh will never be heard on the convention circuit again is a huge loss to fans the world over.
Cheers mate, you will always sit in my heart. Thanks for making me... me!
Paul Darrow 2nd May 1941 – 3rd June 2019
(Written by Warren Cummings)
(Cover image by Martin Holmes)
