Nigel Plaskitt, who played Hartley, Tortoise and others, has written this tribute to George Woodbridge, the actor who played Inigo Pipkin and who sadly died during the recording of the second series.
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I first met George on 17th August 1972 when we started rehearsals for series one of Inigo Pipkin. He was playing the title role and I was more than a little in awe of him. I'd seen him in many a Hammer horror film as the Inn keeper or in any number of British comedy films. He was the voice of experience compared to the rest of us who were just starting out.
He was a charming grandfatherly man who made us all at our ease and he would tell us stories of the ATV Studios at Elstree, now BBC Elstree, where we were shooting the programme, as it was during the days when it was a film studio, pointing out the lawn by the canteen where he had 'swashbuckled' in a pirate film. He loved the idea of making a children's programme and he said to me "We could be on to a winner here, I think this will run and run". His prediction was true but sadly he never lived to see it as he died five weeks into the shooting of series two on the 30th March 1973.
GEORGE WOODBRIDGE
1907 - 1973
* * * * * *
I first met George on 17th August 1972 when we started rehearsals for series one of Inigo Pipkin. He was playing the title role and I was more than a little in awe of him. I'd seen him in many a Hammer horror film as the Inn keeper or in any number of British comedy films. He was the voice of experience compared to the rest of us who were just starting out.
He was a charming grandfatherly man who made us all at our ease and he would tell us stories of the ATV Studios at Elstree, now BBC Elstree, where we were shooting the programme, as it was during the days when it was a film studio, pointing out the lawn by the canteen where he had 'swashbuckled' in a pirate film. He loved the idea of making a children's programme and he said to me "We could be on to a winner here, I think this will run and run". His prediction was true but sadly he never lived to see it as he died five weeks into the shooting of series two on the 30th March 1973.
GEORGE WOODBRIDGE
1907 - 1973