Obituary: Martyn James - Much-loved Scottish actor who flourished after adopting Perthshire as his home

MARTYN JAMES, who has died at the age of 63 after a year-long struggle with cancer, was one of the best-loved actors on the Scottish stage, a completely professional and ever-cheerful man of the theatre who won a special place in the affections of Perthshire audiences after he decided, more than 30 years ago, to make his permanent home in Perth.

Between 1972 and this Christmas – when, too ill to perform live, he recorded the voice of the giant for this year’s Perth Theatre pantomime – he appeared in no fewer than 28 Perth pantos, many of them directed by his old friend and colleague, the late Joan Knight; and after his first appearance at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in 1976, he completed 23 summer seasons there, often delighting audiences with his skill and versatility in tackling the huge range of roles demanded by the company’s famous six-play repertoire system.

Born in Ardnamurchan in 1948, Martyn James was part of a military family, and spent some of his early years in Morayshire, where he attended Keith Grammar School. He trained as an actor at the RSAMD in Glasgow and, after he graduated in 1968, worked in theatre across the UK; in 1969, he also appeared in episodes of the original television version of Dr Finlay’s Casebook. Although his career included appearances at Birmingham Rep, Colchester Mercury Theatre and – most recently – the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, where he appeared in The Miser in 2010, the vast majority of his theatre work involved productions in Scotland; when he celebrated his 40th year in the theatre business, in 2008, he calculated that he had appeared in more than 250 stage shows, often alongside such great Scottish stars as Jimmy Logan, Walter Carr, Una McLean and Russell Hunter.

He also made many screen appearances, making films in London and Rome, and appearing in television shows including Taggart and Still Game.

It was his stage work at Perth and Pitlochry, though, that formed the centre of his life. Martyn James lived alone in Perth, although he remained in touch with his two sisters and their families, who survive him; and in the last decade, he increasingly enjoyed his role as a mainstay of the Pitlochry company, offering support, professional wisdom, and a constant stream of entertaining gossip to younger members of the ensemble.

Instantly recognisable to audiences because of his large frame, bald head, and well-established status as a landmark in the local community, Martyn James was a master of the classic, traditional comic performance, all double-takes and injured pride; his Baron Hardup in Pitlochry’s first-ever Christmas pantomime, just a year ago, was a classic of its kind.

As a consummate theatre professional, though, he retained a capacity to surprise audiences with the intensity and depth of his more serious performances. In 2007, for example, he gave a compelling performance as the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, in Ronald Harwood’s powerful drama Taking Sides, about Furtwangler’s alleged complicity with Nazism; and in 2009 he was a memorably self-deceiving Pittendree in a revival of Victor Carin’s Servant O’ Twa Maisters.

As Pitlochry’s artistic director John Durnin points out, though, Martyn James was something more than a supremely professional actor on stage, and a fine and supportive colleague. He also loved theatre, and had forged an unusual career for a 21st century actor, working mainly in the local community where he had made his home; and he therefore made it his business to bring art-form and community together, using his status as a well-known local figure – and his legendary, unfailing courtesy – to get into conversation with potential audience members in every shop and tea-room in town, and to beguile them into coming along to see the latest show. “He was a great ambassador for this organisation,” said John Durnin this week. “And now, there really is a great sense of loss, throughout the theatre.”

And Ian Grieve, a former director of productions at Pitlochry and Perth, agrees. “He really was worth his weight in half-a-dozen theatre marketeers, for the extraordinary relationship he had wth the audience. He was quite a self-deprecating actor at heart, often modest about what he had achieved. Yet as a colleague, he was always there, always prepared, never likely to let you down; an actor’s actor, in that sense.

“And I found as a director that if you asked him to do more – something a bit out of his usual range, something unexpected – he never failed to deliver; if he believed in what you were doing, he would go for it, and often produce some wonderful, subtle work.

“And I think audiences loved him for that generosity of spirit; for that combination of mischievous good humour and sheer professional skill; and for his willingness, right to the last, to try something new, and to give it all he had, in every single performance.” JOYCE MCMILLAN