With orange skin, a frown and dyed black hair, it's hard to believe that this is telly funnyman Les Dennis.
Fans were understandably bowled over by the 69-year-old's transformation when he guest starred in the Christmas episode of Death In Paradise as mysterious Danny Sheridan.
Watching the episode, in which Ralf Little plays a detective on an idyllic tropical island, one viewer tweeted: "I didn't even know. Bloody hell Les, you did good!"
Others added: "What a brilliant episode and your performance throughout was absolutely outstanding in your scenes. Would love to see you in the show again in the future"; and "Great as usual especially the likeable Les Dennis being really unlikeable."
Ahead of the show's broadcast, Les posted a still of himself in character to social media, and later spoke to members of the press about early fan reaction to his unusual appearance.
He said: “I was really surprised by it. At the moment, I've got a full ‘tache for Granddad in Only Fools and Horses. So whenever I play a different character, I will sometimes change the way I look. But I suppose it was the black hair of Danny Sheridan…kind of deranged Jack Nicholson, I think, how can you get more deranged than Jack Nicholson anyway?
“I was pleased with that, because it means that I'm inhabiting a role, and they're interested to see who that character is.”
But there was more to it than just dying his hair and layering on plenty of fake tan - he had to be careful not to sweat it off under the blazing Guadelope sun, the backdrop of the show's fictional St. Marie island.
“It was [a lot of maintenance], I didn't have a hair dye that was permanent. They would do it in the morning. So I would need to be in makeup for about an hour and a half. And literally, when I finished the end of the day, I would have to go and shower that out because it was very dark. I don't know what they were using, it was tricky to get out every night!
“I loved the fact that at first, I didn't realise they were going to make my character look so different. On the first day I was thinking, ‘is this right?’ When I saw what they did, the makeup department were just brilliant.. This is Danny Sheridan.”
