Hi readers!
So, this is a journal entry I wrote back in 2023 about meeting actor Anthony Head years before that (back in the early 2000s, as it happens).
I had planned to post this entry on my blog anyway, at some point… but the sad demise of Head, earlier in the week, has prompted me to do it now.
So here it is…
Written Summer 2023
Was it really twenty-one years ago (nearly) I first worked on the ITV show The British Comedy Awards – as a Producer? (Well, actually, it was as an Associate Producer… which isn’t as good. Still, you’ve got to start somewhere).
It was! Crikey. Bejesus.
So… The British Comedy Awards 2002. Twenty-one years ago, this autumn. That was an interesting one.
Where do I start?
Ah, I know…
… with the actor Anthony Head (who appeared on the show that year).
Let me fill you in…
It’s no exaggeration to say that there was a time in the late nineties and early noughties when Anthony Head inhabited an important place in my emotional landscape.
And no, it wasn’t because he appeared in those Gold Blend adverts on British TV (although, I admit, I do enjoy a cup of Gold Blend instant coffee first thing in the morning).
Let me give some context…
In late 1996, I was studying on the directing course at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School – in the area of Bristol called Clifton (coincidentally).
Fate gave me one Clifton at the time and took away another. It was while I was on the course that my father died of cancer. I remember how kind to me everyone was on the course, when I returned after Dad’s funeral. And how I began to suffer from ‘sympathy fatigue’ (tiredness of having to react solemnly and appreciatively to all of the condolences, which I’ve talked a little bit about previously in the blog).
After I finished the course, I plunged headlong into… unemployment and any-old-temping-job.
As my life as a temp began to look worryingly untemporary, I was comforted by one welcome distraction.
It was the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which was shown on BBC2, six pm Wednesday evenings (the same slot they used to show Star Trek – my religion when I was younger).
God, I loved Buffy (I still do). I adored everything about the show. The supernatural angle (I’ve always loved that stuff). The great stories. The brilliant, witty dialogue. The unforgettable characters – and the performances of the wonderful actors who brought these characters to life… or to death, in the case of the vampire roles.
One of my favourite characters was Rupert Giles… played by Anthony Head. He seemed unutterably ancient compared to the rest of the cast (even though, looking Head up on Wiki now, he was only in his forties) and his role in the series was as Buffy’s bumbling mentor… the one who guides her (or tries to) in the correct manner to slay vampires.
To begin with, Head’s performance was very much in the stammering Hugh Grant mould (albeit Hugh Grant with glasses and tweeds). But as the seasons progressed, Head dumped the bumble and brought a softly spoken authority to his role.
Buffy’s actual father was an absent figure in the series… and Rupert Giles clearly stepped in to fill that role.
At that time, I was also recently Dad-less. And, whilst it might be an exaggeration to say that the character of Rupert Giles became a kind of fictional surrogate father figure to me… it’s possible there’s some truth in that statement. As the character evolved, I began to get more and more comfort knowing he was there, offering his paternal words of wisdom. And I’d wince whenever it looked like there was the slightest chance he might be killed off, in the show.
Anyway, by autumn 2002 my career had picked up and found a little more focus. I was working as an Associate Producer on the British Comedy Awards in London.
One afternoon, the Executive Producer asked… did anyone have any suggestions for actors who could come on the show and present an award?
‘Anthony Head!’ I immediately blurted out, like the excitable fanboy I was.
‘Who?’ was the general response. My suggestion was met not so much with indifference… more a total collective blank. No-one else had any idea who this guy was. I personally felt that was a poor reflection on the Comedy Awards team rather than on Head.
Anyway, I pestered and wheedled the Exec Producer until finally he gave up and agreed I could send a request to Anthony Head via his London agent.
I sent the request… and Head agreed to come and present an award on the show. Result! Bloody hell, I was excited!
A month or so later, it was the night of the British Comedy Awards – a live transmission, which always made the experience of working on the show absolutely pant-wetting.
As the show got going, it was my job to wait in the green room for the celebrity guests… so I could brief them on what they were expected to do. Except… really, there was only one celebrity guest I was waiting for. Giles from Buffy… I mean, Anthony Head. To be honest, in my head, the two had become hopelessly conflated.
And then… the moment came… Giles/Anthony walked through the door of the green room. Would he immediately take me under his wing and offer me some paternal words of advice? Perhaps some scholarly nuggets of wisdom, which might make me feel less pant-wettingly terrified that I was working on this large, lumbering live show? (In the same way Giles was so often able to bolster Buffy’s courage, before she took on large, lumbering dead vampires).
As Giles/Anthony walked into the room, however, I immediately realised someone was… not quite as I’d expected.
Was that… a family he’d brought with him? A blonde wife and a matching set of two blonde kids?
But Giles from Buffy didn’t have a family! He was an eternal bachelor! That was the whole point of him!
Giles/Anthony wasn’t dressed in a very Giles from Buffy way either. What was up with that trendy leather jacket? And was that… an earring in Gile’s/Anthony’s left ear? What on earth?!
‘Alright mate, where’s the bar?’ Anthony Head immediately said to me, with a noticeable London accent (East or South? I wasn’t sure). Now, hold on! Giles from Buffy would never ask where the bar was! And certainly not with an East or South London accent (Giles from Buffy spoke with the purest received pronunciation! The Queen’s English, no less!). In fact, the flushness of his cheeks suggested… Londoner Anthony Head might have had one or two drinks already. What on earth?!?!
At this point, reality came crashing in. There was no escaping it. Anthony Head was not Rupert Giles from Buffy. He was nothing like the character. Head, in reality, was an earing-wearing, bar-looking-for, East-or-South-London-accented actor.
I would have to accept it. Rupert Giles from Buffy was not actually a real person. He was just a fictional character from a TV show. Even though the person standing in front of me, in the green room, looked an awful lot like him… he wasn’t him.
I would have to find another surrogate father. Anthony Head – the actor from the Gold Blend adverts (as nice as he turned out to be, when I ended up chatting with him, and no doubt a great father to his own, actual kids) – was probably not the man for the job.
Of course, the fault entirely lay with me (not Anthony Head) and my insanely unrealistic expectations… my inability to distinguish fiction from reality, like a crazy person.
But I guess that’s what the expression ‘never meet your heroes’ is all about. Although perhaps, in this case, the expression should be… ‘never meet your fictional heroes.’
If you do, and the experience catches you off guard, let’s be honest… it almost certainly won’t be the hero’s (or, rather, the person-who-plays-the-hero’s) fault.
So, there you have it – that’s the end of the entry originally written in 2023 (about an encounter in 2002).
Looking at the entry above, back in the present (i.e. June 2026) and less than a week after Head’s death, makes me think a few things.
Firstly, how sad it is that Anthony Head is no longer with us – 72 seems too young.
Secondly, what a diamond geezer he was for bringing his wife (now deceased too, sadly) and kids to the British Comedy Awards. I’ve read in one obituary that Head took them with him everywhere, and that certainly seems to be the case here. And I like to think they all had a bloody good time!
And thirdly… what a good actor the man was (something he probably didn’t receive enough recognition for). When I met Head in the flesh, it blew my mind how different he was from his Buffy character. It seems he transformed himself to play Rupert Giles… not in a showy way (i.e. sticking prosthetics on his nose, or a few stone on his figure)… but in a subtle and underplayed yet wholly convincing way. That’s great acting, that is. Just as the vileness he managed to inject into his Ted Lasso character years later, when Head himself was clearly a nice bloke, was great acting too. Nicely done, Mr. Head!
So, Anthony Head… Actor… Librarian at Sunnydale High School (Class of 1997-2003)… and all-round class act… RIP.
P. D. Clifton 
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