In my previous essay, Falstaff’s Legacy, first published in The Bear Book II, edited by Les Wright, published in 2001, I endeavoured to provide a selection of bears that had if not an English, certainly a British, flavour. With the new Millennium now in its second decade, the time has come to see if there is anything to add; especially in the visibility of the gay community in the wider world. True, there is now a British bear publication, several bear clubs and bear nights, but there is still more of an American influence. There is a more identifiable image to, say, German bears, but the European take is far less overt. Occasionally, an advert for a soft drink appears on British television with a bear or two, but very rarely and primarily for comic effect.

He may not be a bear himself but Guy Ritchie, the film director, best known for his help in rebooting Robert Downey Jr’s film career, clearly has a penchant for the larger, more hirsute male supporting actor. His break-out hit, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in 1998, had roles for Lenny McLean, the former bare-knuckle boxer, as Barry the Baptist. Along with another controversial film director Quentin Tarantino, Ritchie has been criticised for his use of ultra-violence, also evident in his follow-up, and even more bear-friendly Snatch. (Weirdly, one scene from his debut, with P H Moriarty as Hatchet Harry, was overlooked, Barry’s boss, who, in a rather startling flashback, bludgeons a man to death with a dildo!) Ritchie sealed his gay credentials by marrying Madonna, although it had a rather negative effect on his own film career, for a short while. For future reference, Revolver, only notable for one or two fine, but American bears. Not for the first time has Madge cursed a director’s fortunes. Check out the last picture of the late John Schlesinger.

One of Moriarty’s most memorable roles was as Razors, Bob Harold Shand’s sadistic henchman, in 1980’s The Long Good Friday. Hoskins’ moll was played by Helen Mirren, before she became the Queen; and married that most bearish of film directors Taylor Hackford. Hoskins long shower at the end of the film is a classic British bear moment, and one of his last roles was as a dwarf alongside Kristen Stewart’s in her ill-starred appearance in Snow White and the Huntsman. Due to the onset of Parkinson's, Hoskins has put his acting career to bed.

Shand’s character was a dramatic tour de force in one of Handmade Films’ greatest films, but there was light relief in their bleak 60’s comedy, Withnail and I, where the world was introduced to Uncle Monty, Richard E Grant’s gardening obsessed relation. If Richard Griffiths had essayed just that one role in Bruce Robinson’s directorial debut it would have been enough to remember the Stockport-born actor by. Thanks to J K Rowling and her boy-wizard, Griffths rendered another horrible uncle into vivid celluloid life, Harry’s guardian Vernon Dursley. And, despite, his behaviour on screen, Griffiths continued his links with the film franchise by starring in the revival of Peter Shaffer’s Equus opposite a naked Daniel Radcliffe.

With its success at the box-office, up there with Star Wars, Tolkien and James Bond, it is the first franchise of any kind to give us an openly gay – and bearish - character in modern popular culture, Professor Albus Dumbledore. First played by Richard Harris and then Michael Gambon. Both Irish-born actors, who have achieved notoriety on stage and screen, and whose private lives have been good copy for the tabloid press. What tends to be overlooked is their outstanding talent as thespians. Harris never bothered the theatre as much as his cinematic endeavours, but made a small fortune touring as King Arthur in the musical Camelot. Despite replacing Harris in one of the biggest movie franchises of all time, Gambon has continued to appear in the West End and the National Theatre, based on London's South Bank; once the haunt of William Shakespare and Ben Jonson. Throughout his career, he played as many gay characters as straight roles.

Unlike Harris, Gambon has played Sir John, also for the National Theatre, in Henry IV, Parts I and II, and received mixed reviews, but a fellow co-star at the National has gone on to carve out his own path as sought-after character actor, Simon Russell Beale.

His first public performances were as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral, alma mater of another musical bear Jimmy Edwards. Whereas Edwards pursued a life, almost exclusively, as a comic actor, Russell Beale has made a name for himself in both drama and comedy. He appeared as the manservant Mosca opposite Michael Gambon's eponymous role in Ben Jonson's Volpone at the National Theatre. And, as with the Great Gambon, Russell Beale has also played the fat knight, but in the BBC's adaptation of several of the Bard's History Plays, in a series called The Hollow Crown. Rather than star in situation comedy, he has built up a reputation for playing authority figures, in the last series of Spooks and the televised adaptation of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time. As with Gambon, he is also winning awards and acclaim.

Of his latest success, it has been as Terri Dennis, the army officer and female impersonator, in Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols. Set in the Far East, during the Second World War, it is based on Nichols' own time in an entertainments unit. The filmed version starred John Cleese, but had Denis Quilley as Dennis, in a role that he helped create in the original staging. Fully heterosexual, he is probably best known for this and his role in La Cage Aux Folles. Sadly, Quilley died in 2003. Just a few years before, he had appeared with Simon Russell Beale at the National Theatre. Russell Beale was Hamlet and Quilley was Polonius and the Gravedigger. As a whole, the production fell somewhat flat, but when Quilley and Russell Beale were on stage together, it really began to sing.

Another bear to meet his hirsute maker, in 2004, was the wrestler and actor, Pat Roach. Most cinema-goers will recognise him from roles he played in work produced or directed by Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Amongst the several roles he played opposite Indiana Jones was one of the first, as the burly moustachioed German soldier; who met a sticky end courtesy of an airplane propeller. To many British television viewers, he was a fixture on the small screen, first as a wrestler, then as the gentle giant Brian ‘Bomber’ Busbridge in the blue-collar series, Auf Wiedershen, Pet. Re-runs continue on British television via the digital channel Yesterday.

Of all the artists that have channelled a British identity is artist Mogan Comics. This Scottish artist has produced a couple of graphic novels, but his website displays his penchant for the older, chubbier man. There are several galleries, dealing in portraits of well-known, and not so well-known, faces. One section stands out, Victoriana, where several bears are portrayed in various forms of undress, including an old-style fireman. My particular favourite, Full Service, portrays an older man, clad in nothing but a straw boater, sporting magnificent mutton-chop whiskers, sock suspenders, trousers round his ankles being fully serviced by his suitably attired chauffeur.

All I can say, to this wonderful Scottish artist, more please!

© Howard Watson 2009