Dashing actor who brought energy and verve to his many film, stage and TV roles over five decadesTough and tender marked the acting style of Nicky Henson, who has died after a long illness aged 74. Energetic and ebullient were other critical adjectives flying around a career of more than five decades in revue, musicals, with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and on television (Fawlty Towers and EastEnders) and in films by Roy Boulting (There’s A Girl in My Soup, 1970), Mike Leigh (Vera
Drake, 2004) and George Clooney (Syriana, 2005).
The range and variety of his work was astonishing, and seems even more so after taking into account the cancer and serial medical procedures he endured over the last 20 years of his life. But he was like Bobby Vee’s rubber ball that came bouncing back all the time.