The Rising Damp and Death in Paradise actor recounts his love of doggy adventure TV and how his current show seeks to inspire the same sense of wonder
When I was a child, the television was mainly for me and my siblings. Our parents weren’t too keen on it themselves, probably because they were busy with work and their own lives. They would watch it for an hour, late at night, after we had gone to sleep, but otherwise they would sit up telling each other stories and entertaining themselves with their memories instead – that was their tradition.
I loved adventure shows, though, and would watch all kinds, from William Tell to Robin Hood, The Lone Ranger and this strange show, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, about a Mountie in Canada who would rescue people in the freezing cold with his dog, King, pulling a sled alongside. I loved any show with a dog as the lead, actually – programmes such as The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin – so much so that I even named my own dog King after the Mountie series.
