Character actors sometimes step out from the shadows to play prominent roles in popular tele- vision dramas, providing a bedrock for productions that feature ensemble casts. Bernard Gallagher, who has died of pneumonia aged 87, performed that role in Casualty when it began in 1986, playing Ewart Plimmer, consultant and “father” of Holby hospital’s A&E department. “We’re in the frontline, goddamn it!” were the first words viewers heard from him.
Gallagher’s character was usually seen barking out orders or sitting in his poky office, feet up at an untidy desk and listening to music through a personal stereo. Long hours and dedication to his job led Ewart’s wife to throw him out. In the second series, his battles with the hospital’s new administrator, Elizabeth Straker (played by Maureen O’Brien), turned into a relationship, but that ended when she moved to the US. The actor’s own run in Casualty finished in 1988 after three series, with Ewart suffering a fatal heart attack.
Gallagher, frequently cast in authority roles, was the second of three boys and one girl born in Bradford to millworkers Ellen (nee McDonald) and Harry, who was also a pianist in a band. He acted in plays at St Bede’s Catholic grammar school and at Sheffield University (1948-51), where he studied English.
After gaining a diploma in education, Gallagher did his national service as a flying officer in the RAF educational service (1952-54), during which he also appeared in theatrical productions, then taught English at a Birmingham technical college for a year. The chance to act professionally came when Donald Sartain, a friend from his RAF days, started a company in Lyme Regis (1956-57), where Gallagher made his debut in Robert Morley’s comedy Hippo Dancing, then took him to theatres in Barrow-in-Furness (1958-63) and Dundee (1965), acting and directing at both.
There was also a stint at the Victoria theatre in Stoke-on-Trent (1963-64) before he headed to London and the groundbreaking Royal Court in 1966, where he made an impression in the Joe Orton plays The Ruffian on the Stair and The Erpingham Camp (both 1967).
Gallagher’s screen debut came as the solicitor husband in the Robert Muller television play A World of Time (1967) and he played the holiday camp manager Mervyn Price in Selwyn (1978), a sitcom written by Alan Plater and starring Bill Maynard as Selwyn Froggitt.
He was regularly seen as a barrister, Jonathan Fry QC, in 67 episodes of the daytime courtroom drama series Crown Court throughout its entire run (1972-84) and as judges in The Chief (1994), Bad Girls (2001) and EastEnders – allowing Nick Cotton (John Altman) to get away with murder in 1993, but giving Graham Foster (Alex McSweeney) an eight-year sentence in 2004 for raping Little Mo Mitchell (Kacey Ainsworth). He also played police officers in The Sweeney (1975), Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em (1978) and Paula Milne’s Screen Two play Frankie and Johnnie (1986).
In the Scottish soap Take the High Road (1981-89), Gallagher played Lord Strathmorris, a dirty-dealing landowner. There was also a part in the sitcom Relative Strangers (1985-87) as the shopkeeper, Percy Fisher. One of the actor’s final screen roles, over the course of Downton Abbey’s first four series (2010-13), was as the widowed Bill Molesley, keen gardener, perennial of the village flower show and father of the Crawley family’s butler-turned-footman Joseph (Kevin Doyle).
On stage, his parts during a long association with the National Theatre (1967-76) included Mr Stanley in Howard Brenton’s play Weapons of Happiness and Bones in Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers (both 1976). During two seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, starting in 1990, Gallagher acted Lovewit in The Alchemist, Florio in ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore and Casca in Julius Caesar (all 1991-92).
He also played Syd in Willy Russell’s Breezeblock Park (Whitehall theatre, 1977), directed by Alan Dossor, and Bill Doyle in the Colin Welland school drama Roll on Four O’Clock (Lyric, Hammersmith, and Palace theatres, 1981). A source of particular pride was his performance as Brian in Heart’s Desire – half of the Caryl Churchill double bill Blue Heart – for the Royal Court Downstairs at the Duke of York’s theatre (1997) and in New York (1999), directed by Max Stafford-Clark.
Among many radio roles, he played Pope Paul VI in Roger Crane’s conspiracy thriller The Last Confession (2008).
In 1971, Gallagher married the actor Sylvia Vickers, who survives him, along with their children, Matthew and Zoe.
• Bernard Gallagher, actor, born 26 September 1929; died 27 November 2016
