DEMON HEADMASTER EXORCISED
Look into my eyes… though they’re too rolled over to threaten anyone now. Yep, school’s out for The Demon Headmaster star Terrence Hardiman, aged 86. His headmaster was perhaps the children’s TV villain of the 90s, as an imposing megalomaniac hellbent on controlling both his school and the world. He only removed his sunglasses to deploy his hypnotic glare on his pupils, and those piercing green peepers struck nightmares in many a youngster while making him hugely popular with children and adults alike.
His CV beforehand proved he had the authoritative gravitas for the role. Starting out in college as a frequent collaborator of a budding Derek Jacobi, he flourished on stage in Shakespearean roles and received glimmering reviews for his hauntingly broken portrayal of Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus. He transitioned to film and TV and deftly spanned the moral compass with a common thread of a position of power – Nazis including the relatively-subdued Major Reinhardt in Secret Army and the nakedly brutish General Stuckler in Wish Me Luck, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in Gandhi, and a reunion with Jacobi as the respectful abbot superior to Jacobi’s detective monk in Cadfael.
Post-Demon Headmaster, Hardiman played another headmaster on children’s TV as monotonous wizard head Egbert Hellibore in The Worst Witch. The 2010s saw him venture into Doctor Who, play Anthony Eden’s doctor in The Crown, and reprise his biggest role in the finale of the 2019 Demon Headmaster revival. He also recorded numerous audiobooks, and counteracted his oft-terrifying onscreen presence with a real-life warmth.
Doctor Who theme team The Gallifrey Regeneration Game and Pointless outfit Well Done If You Got These at Home both graduate.
Terrence Hardiman
6 April 1937 – 8 May 2023, aged 86
2 TEAMS (💀💀💀💀💀💀 6 POINTS)