Casualty star Simon MacCorkindale tells Alison Jones why he has packed away his stethoscope and returned to the stage.
It is always a challenge following in the footsteps of an actor who has become irrevocably associated with a part.
Particularly if that actor casts as long a shadow as the late Sir Laurence Olivier.
In the recent film remake of the thriller Sleuth, director Kenneth Branagh rather cleverly got round the problem by having Michael Caine swop roles.
In the 1972 Joseph L Mankiewicz version, Caine played Milo Tindle, the upstart young lover of Olivier’s wife who is unwillingly drawn into an elaborate battle of wits.
In 2007 it was Caine’s turn to play the vengeful, cuckolded husband (Andrew Wyke), with Jude Law repeating another Caine role after already starring in Alfie.
For the stage production currently doing the regional rounds, comparisons to Larry are avoided by the fact that Andrew, played by Simon MacCorkindale, has effectively been aged down and Milo, played by Michael Praed, aged up.
STAGE CLASSIC IS BRINGING OUT THE MANIMAL IN SIMON
He was the English aristocrat of choice a decade before Colin Firth emerged from a lake to become a housewife heartthrob and Hollywood star.
Simon MacCorkindale played the upper-crust cad in some of the most popular American television series of the 1980s – from The Dukes of Hazzard and Hart To Hart to Dynasty and Falcon Crest.
Now he’s taking to the Nottingham stage as a devious author in the revival of psychological thriller Sleuth, alongside his Dynasty co-star and former TV Robin Hood Michael Praed.
SIMON LEAVES CASUALTY TO TAKE ON OLIVIER’S KEY ROLE
One of television’s best-loved doctors has marched out of accident and emergency and into a stage play that has become a modern classic.Simon MacCorkindale, whose character Harry Harper left Casualty two episodes ago, takes the leading role of Andrew in Sleuth which comes to the Theatre Royal, Bath, next Monday.
ACTOR Simon MacCorkindale loves nothing more than a nail-bitingly good, edge-of-the-seat thriller, so he’s absolutely buzzing with enthusiasm ahead of his latest play, Sleuth, which opens in Windsor later this month.
First written by Anthony Shaffer, the Tony Award-winning play revolves around Simon’s character, Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer, who is fascinated by psychological games and game-playing.
He lures his wife’s lover, Milo Tindle (played by Michael Praed), to his countryside manor house, where he subjects him to a tangled web of intrigue and manipulation. But ultimately nothing turns out quite as it seems.
Simon MacCorkindale is perhaps best recognized over the last few years as Harry Harper, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, in the BBC’s most popular and enduring drama series Casualty. Following his starring role in the successful 2007 tour of Agatha Christie’s Unexpected Guest, he now returns to the stage in Sleuth.
Simon Fans – Fantastic site with some very unique photos and information, also has an archive of the ‘Simply Simon Fan Club Newsletters’ which will date from 1983 till around 1995 – the archive is slowly transferring to this site from Lonna’s
Simon MacCorkindale Site – Excellent site, loads of caps and scans of Simon MacCorkindale, biography, filmography etc – if you haven’t yet visited, do it now, has some scans, articles and screen caps not available on here. A lot of this site appears to be offline at the moment 🙁
Georgian Arabians – Simon MacCorkindale and Susan George’s Arabian Stud Farm site
1977 – Simon in his ITV drama Romance. ‘In a way it was my breakthrough performance,’he recalls. ‘lt was shown to the director of Death on the Nile [1978] and I got the role of Simon Doyle in it.’
1984 – With the late, Oscar-winning actress JayneWyman in hit US soap opera Falcon Crest. ‘She was a fantastic woman. We stayed in touch for many years.’
This is the interview we managed to arrange for the site’s first birthday in April 2007 , though the interview was recorded late February. All answers are pretty much word for word what he replied. The interview was carried out at the Grand Theater in Wolverhampton. This is quite a long interview and the questions are out of order from when they were originally asked to make more sense.
Question 000 – From shelliwood: How did you get the scar under your right eye?
How did I get the scar under my right eye? That happened when I was about 13 and I was playing cricket and I got hit by a cricket ball.
I hit a ball and it caught the edge of the bat and flew back up into my face, and hit me right under the eye, split it wide open. But it’s been there and I’ve used it, on a couple of jobs I did I actually highlighted it slightly and made it a feature of the character.
Did I use it in Manimal? Did I or not, do you know I can’t remember. I mean it was more noticeable, it become progressively less noticeable, I don’t even notice it anymore actually. I haven’t ever had anything done about it but as one’s face changes so does it. It also stated a little higher it was nearer my eye so it gets a bit lower, force of gravity (chuckle) or something like that.
Question 003 – From Kerri: Do you find it weird that there are fan sites about you?
I suppose I don’t find it weird because I did when it first happened and therefore having accepted it, I know it’s there.
When Lonna Poland approached my manager in California, which was probably 1982, she would know better than I, but I’m sure it was 1982, it seem to me to a very strange thing, seemed to be rather an American thing because I hadn’t really experienced it much in the UK. We discussed it, my manger said, ‘No this is really fairly normal and it’s not a bad things at all it’s good for PR, it a good way of communicating with fans and we can control a lot of thing so forth to a degree.’ So anyway I said to Lonna that we’d do it and we did. So having made that judgment, from then on I knew about fan sites and therefore I knew what it could be like and Lonna was exceptionally good at running it.
IT was typical of a doctor to keep you waiting. When have they ever kept their appointment times?
But as my consultation was with one of Holby City’s finest medics, the stoical Harry Harper, I was prepared to wait.
In the four years that actor Simon MacCorkindale has worn the lead stethoscope and a furrowed brow in the BBC’s flagship Saturday night soap he has set more than a few hearts fluttering on and off set.
But can the 54-year-old actor cut the mustard while temporarily back in civvie street on stage at Milton Keynes Theatre this week in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest?
Following widespread critical acclaim for their star-studded production of The Hollow, the second production from The Agatha Christie Theatre Company promises to be another “beautifully staged and executed murder-mystery… a killer production of classic Christie class” (The Argus).
Casualty viewers have missed the charismatic consultant Harry Harper since he left Holby General last February. But now he’s back!
Harry Harper is arguably TV’s most debonair doctor. But in the flesh, Casualty actor Simon MacCorkindale (55) is, if possible, even more dashing. Immaculately dressed and speaking in deep tones, which are every bit as reassuring and in control as his on-screen alter ego’s, he surely is every woman’s idea of a dream doctor. Many of the letters Simon receives express the wish that he was a real doctor.
Simon MacCorkindale is perhaps best recognised as Harry Harper, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, in the BBC’s most popular and enduring drama series Casualty.
A childhood love for drama led to a place at Studio ’68 of Theatre Arts in London aged 19. On completing the course, he toured in regional rep before his West End debut in the highly acclaimed Pygmalion. He worked extensively on British TV, and in 1976 appeared in the renowned I, Claudius and in Zeffirelli’s opulent Jesus of Nazareth.
This site is dedicated to actor, director and producer Simon MacCorkindale
Simon MacCorkindale is well known for his roles as Jonathan Chase in Manimal, Greg Reardon in Falcon Crest, Peter Sinclair in Counterstrike and Harry Harper from BBC’s BAFTA Award winning Casualty.
His work in film includes Simon Doyle in Death On The Nile, Arthur Davies in The Riddle Of The Sands, Philip FitzRoyce in Jaws 3D
Simon was seen on stage as Michael Starkwedder in The Unexpected Guest, Andrew Wyke in Sleuth and Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music in his musical debut
The aim of this site has always been to build a large and extensive online resource of Simon MacCorkindale’s work for his fans
Some of the things this site has:
Media Gallery: Thousands of screen caps covering Simon’s career early days in the 70’s until his last performance, hundreds of video clips covering most of Simon’s career and hundreds of scans from various sources e.g. magazines, photo’s, cast cards, newspapers, theater programes.
Articles: Interviews about or with Simon spanning over 40 years
Forum/Community: Which brings together Simon fans from across the globe and spanning a huge age range, some members were part of Simon’s fan club in the 1980′s. Members of the forum have access to a few more images and audio files than non members
Shop: A list of available DVD’s, videos and more to buy from various sources.
If you still cannot find what you are looking for, drop us a message and we will try to help
The Simon MacCorkindale Fan Page and Community* was started April 17th 2006 and became Semi-Official in September 2008
This site is updated as time allows, I have a lot more still to add so keep checking back
* Simon and Susan keeps calling this site his ‘Fan Club’ though I prefer the term ‘Fan Site’ to differentiate from the original Fan Club.
Want to know a little bit more about how the site started and what sources we use? See our site history, bibliography and thanks
For an actor who’s survived more deaths than most, the original Mr Manimal remains optimistic
There’s a Casualty/Holby City special this Saturday. What is it?
It’s an organ donation episode. It’s the end of the BBC’s organ donor week, and we’ve combined with Holby to do a story that is organ-donor driven but has some reality TV elements to it.
What, as in people will vote out the organ they don’t like?
No. We’ve already created the drama part but the programme’s going to be bookended by Professor Robert Winston who makes an appeal in order to promote the notion of donation, which is also being pronounced as Do-Nation – as in the nation should respond by getting on to the organ donation register.
As part of the BBC’s DoNation season, Holby City and Casualty join forces for a special interactive episode in which viewers can vote to determine the outcome of an organ donation storyline.
Central to the process will be Casualty’s director of emergency medicine Harry Harper, who’ll reveal the decision at the end of the show.
During the Seventies, actor Simon MacCorkindale was one of our biggest heartthrobs. These days, he runs his own film company and has returned to the small screen in Casualty. But it could all have turned out differently…
My father was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and in the first 17 years of my parents’ marriage — I was born in the second year — they moved house 21 times. So it was a very nomadic upbringing. There was a bit of rogues and vagabonds about it, which is what actors used to be.
I always invented games, which I think came out of being a child in the air force and never having the same group of friends for very long, so, in the end you have the potential to become quite insular. My brother, who is a couple of years younger, and I used to invent things together.
Simon MacCorkindale might now be more familiar for his role on Casualty, But we decide to remind him of his time when he could turn into any animal he wanted, in his superhero guise of … Manimal!
Possibly the most bizarre of a plethora of superhero action series that Glen Larson launched upon an unsuspecting television audience in the Eighties, Manimal starred Simon MacCorkindale as Dr Jonathan Chase, a tuxedo-clad university professor who helped the police using his unique special power. At the merest hint of trouble, he could turn into any animal he desired. Whether panther, elephant or mouse, a barrage of plastic special effects, throbbing foreheads and elongating fingers signaled his transformation as he stomped or scurried to thwart a dastardly crime. MacCorkindale took to the role with aplomb, a dashing hero with charisma and charm, but alas the combination of his debonair good looks and demented special effects were not enough and the show only lased for eight episodes after its star-studded pilot first aired.
Translated from the original French, so readability is a little strange. Translated by SMCFP Member Nadeia
The man-animal, is one of the most popular myth: Minotaur, Sphinx, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Island of Dr Moreau, Tarzan, The Fly, Spiderman, The Incredible Hulk, Werewolf, the Beast of Gévaudan, Cat people, The Creature from the black Lagoon, and The Man from Atlantis, to list only the most famous which inspired widely legends, literature, movies, comics and television.
After the bionical man (the six million dollars man), knight rider (K2000), cybernetic man (Automan), the writer-producer-director Glen A. Larson and Donald Boyle, decided to adapt the myth of the man-animal.
Casualty Saturdays BBC1 Name Simon MacCorkindale Age 50 Education Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, Studio 68 of Theatre Arts, London Role Call Could easily have been typecast as an urbane hunk, but has achieved a diverse gallery of roles – from classics to soaps – in TV, film and theatre. Also a writer, director and producer who runs his own production company, Amy International, with his actress wife, Susan George
Consultant Harry Harper is spending what he hopes will be a nice day out at the fair with his kids. But you just know that, this being the first episode in a new series of CASUALTY, disaster is looming.
Sure enough, it’s not long before Harry is dealing with one of the biggest and goriest disasters ever to hit Holby – a crash involving the air ambulance which is called to an emergency at the fair.
The dashing actor, 50, veteran of long-running US shows such as Falcon Crest, joined the show as caring consultant Harry Harper earlier this year and he says: “It is a big commitment. It is very intensive – we work 49 weeks a year.
“I was worried about the balance of my life and I am still a bit worried but I knew what I was doing. I have been in TV from a young age.”
New A&E consultant Harry Harper realises that he is going to be in for a rough ride with headstrong Lara Stone this fortnight. Lara has several run-ins with bullying Detective Inspector David Collier until finally, Harry is forced to reprimand her for her unprofessional manner.
“Harry picks up very quickly that Lara is a little fragile,” reveals Simon MacCorkindale, who plays the new recruit. “He doesn’t question her skills as a doctor but he feels that she can get a little too emotionally involved with the patients.”
While Harry and Lara clash, Simon is happily settling into his new role, where he is set to play the doctor for the foreseeable future.
“Harry’s a great character,” reveals Simon. “He’s a bit of a super doctor. He is also a family man and has five children but he still has an eye for a pretty girl! I like him a lot.”
Simon has a wealth of acting experience including the US soap Falcon Crest and hit films such as Death On The Nile. He admits that it was daunting to join such a close cast but he laughingly explains that some real-life experiences have helped him to adapt to the hospital environment.
“Being an outdoors person, I have spent a lot of time in A&E over the years with various war wounds!”
Smoothy Simon MacCorkindale has had more than his fair share of visits to A&E
Playing the likes of Manimal’s Jonathan Chase and Falcon Crest’s Greg Reardon, actor Simon MacCorkindale has earned himself the reputation as one of TV’s eternal bachelor boys. But it’s as a family man that he’ll be seen from this week, playing Casualty’s new consultant, Harry Harper.
