With a portly but athletic physicality, a rich baritone voice, a bloodhound, drooping visage and a sarcastic sense of humour, Christopher Benjamin, who has died aged 90, was a backbone actor on television, but mostly stage, for many years.
With the Royal Shakespeare Company – for whom he featured from 1978 to 2002 – he played a huge variety of roles, but was especially memorable in the wonderful Nicholas Nickleby of 1980, when he played the definitive old actor laddie, Vincent Crummles.
