In pictures: The career of Roger Lloyd Pack
- Published
The performance of Roger Lloyd Pack in the role of Colin 'Trigger' Ball earned him a spot in the nation's hearts as one of the most beloved characters in British TV history. With his glum demeanour and simplistic outlook in life, roadsweeper Trigger was an everyman. In the episode Heroes and Villains, where Trigger wins an award for owning the same broom for 20 years, he reveals it has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles.
Lloyd Pack studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before making his stage debut in Northampton. In 1975, he was cast in a minor role opposite John Hurt in The Naked Civil Servant.
In 1975 he worked with future Harry Potter director Mike Newell in the BBC's Play for Today series, in an episode titled Brassneck. The play was a savage satire on England, depicting the ups and downs of a self-seeking Midlands family.
In 1994 he was cast as Owen Newitt in The Vicar of Dibley. Set in a rural village somewhere in England, the villagers are unprepared for their unorthodox new vicar, played by Dawn French. The hugely successful show ran until 2007.
He worked with Dawn French on several projects. Here, in a 1996 episode of the comedy series Murder Most Horrid, he is pictured between French and a young Minnie Driver.
He was reunited with his Only Fools and Horses cast-mates again in 2001 for the Christmas Special, If They Could See Us Now, in which Rodney and Del Trotter lost their considerable fortunes and returned penniless to their old flat in Peckham.
Lloyd Pack was a committed socialist who campaigned for nuclear disarmament. In 2012 he spoke at a Hands Off Iran and Syria protest outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.
Though Lloyd Pack was best known for his work on television, he was also a veteran of the stage. In 2004 he starred in a production of Charlotte Jones' The Dark at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Lloyd Pack played a distant father who struggles to communicate with his wife and son.
In 2005 Lloyd Pack became known to a younger generation of TV viewers, starring opposite David Tennant as John Lumic in the Doctor Who episode Rise of the Cybermen. In the episode, the villainous Lumic fails to gain approval from the President of Great Britain for his plan to upgrade humanity by placing their brains into a metal exoskeleton.
Lloyd Pack starred in Survivors in 2008. The series was a remake of a 1970s drama, depicting the lives of a group of people who survived a virulent unknown strain of influenza which has wiped out most of the human species. Despite some positive reviews, it failed to catch on with viewers and was cancelled in 2010.
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Lloyd Pack leaves three sons and a daughter, actress Emily Lloyd. Her most famous role was in the 1950s seaside drama Wish You Were Here in 1987.
Lloyd Pack was married twice, first to Sheila Ball whom he divorced in 1972, and then to poet and dramatist Jehane Markham (pictured).
- Published16 January 2014
- Published16 January 2014
- Published16 January 2014
- Published17 January 2014