Biography
Geoffrey Dyson Palmer, OBE (4 June 1927 - 5 November 2020) was an English actor known for his roles in British television sitcoms playing Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976–79), Ben Parkinson in Butterflies (1978–1983) and Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By (1992–2005). His film appearances include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Madness of King George (1994), Mrs. Brown (1997), and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Geoffrey Dyson Palmer was born on 4 June 1927 in North Fi...
Known For
Complete Filmography
To Olivia
2021
In 1962, Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl retreat to the English countryside to bring up their young family. The seemingly unlikely pair find their relati...
Paddington
2014
as Head Geographer
A young Peruvian bear travels to London in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he meets the kindly Brown family, w...
Walrus: Two Tonne Tusker
2013
as Narrator
Sivuqaq is an 18-year-old, larger than life captive pacific walrus. By now he should be a dad but things have not worked out. This is where reproducti...
Bert & Dickie
2012
as Charles Burnell
Thrown together just five weeks before the final of the 1948 London Olympics, Bert Bushnell (Doctor Who's Matt Smith) and Dickie Burnell (Sam Hoare) d...
Run For Your Wife
2012
as Man on Toilet
John Smith has been happily involved in a bigamous marriage for five years. He lives with Stephanie in Finsbury and Michelle in Stockwell. Fortunately...
Queen Victoria's Last Love: Abdul Karim
2012
as Narrator
In 1897 Queen Victoria antagonized family and court with her relationship with Indian servant Abdul Karim. Originally a waiter the devious and arrogan...
Lost Christmas
2011
as Dr. Clarence
An Urban Fairy Tale set in Manchester. A story of how a series of tragic events, that blight a young boy's life on Christmas Eve, take him on a journe...
W.E.
2011
as Stanley Baldwin
In 1998, an auction of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor causes great excitement. For one woman, Wally Winthrop, it has much more meaning....
Fawlty Towers: Re-Opened
2009
as Self / Dr Price
30 years after Fawlty Towers (1975) ended, Stephen Fry narrates a documentary about the making of this classic sitcom.
The Pink Panther 2
2009
as Joubert
When legendary treasures from around the world are stolen, including the priceless Pink Panther Diamond, Chief Inspector Dreyfus is forced to assign I...
Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley
2008
as Sir John Crowder
A light hearted look at future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's rise from research chemist in 1949 to becoming MP for Finchley in 1959, encompassing...
Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned
2007
as Captain Hardaker
When disaster hits the Titanic, the Doctor uncovers a threat to the whole human race. Battling alongside aliens, saboteurs, robot Angels and a new fri...
The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag
2005
as Corbett's Ghost
Set in Colonial India in 1925, the hunt for the most notorious man-eating leopard of all time.
Pope John Paul II: 1920 - 2005
2005
as Narrator
This is a BBC commemoration of the life and times of one of the most beloved pontiffs in history. Narrated by Geoffrey Palmer, it is a fitting tribut...
Piccadilly Jim
2004
as Bayliss
Set in the 1930s, an American with a scandalous reputation on both sides of the Atlantic must do an about-face in order to win back the woman of his d...
The Young Visiters
2003
as Minnit
The Young Visiters, written in twelve days by nine-year-old Daisy Ashford in 1890, is a surreal blend of naiveté, precocious perception and inadverten...
Peter Pan
2003
as Sir Edward Quiller Couch
In stifling Edwardian London, Wendy Darling mesmerizes her brothers every night with bedtime tales of swordplay, swashbuckling and the fearsome Captai...
Rat
2000
as The Doctor
After a night of drinking Guiness at the local watering hole, an ordinary, working-class, family man in Dublin's life is turned upside-down when he wa...
Anna and the King
1999
as Lord John Bradley
The story of the romance between the King of Siam (now Thailand) and the widowed British school teacher Anna Leonowens during the 1860s. Anna teaches ...
Alice Through the Looking Glass
1998
as White King
A modern adaptation of the classic children's story 'Alice through the Looking Glass', which continued on from the popular 'Alice in Wonderland' story...
Mr. Men & Little Miss: The Christmas Letter
1998
as Narrator / Santa
Jack can't sent out his letter to Father Christmas...will the Mr. Men and Little Miss help him?
Reckless: The Sequel
1998
as Robert Crane
One year on in their lives, Owen and Anna plan to marry. But Anna's ex-husband may have an other idea. He schemes to rip the couple apart. Can Anna an...
Stiff Upper Lips
1998
as His Butler's Voice
Stiff Upper Lips is a broad parody of British period films, especially the lavish Merchant-Ivory productions of the 'eighties and early 'nineties. Alt...
Tomorrow Never Dies
1997
as Admiral Roebuck
A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mas...
Mrs Brown
1997
as Henry Ponsonby
When Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert dies, she finds solace in her trusted servant, Mr. John Brown. But their relationship also brings scandal ...
The Madness of King George
1994
as Warren
Aging King George III of England is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confu...
Stalag Luft
1993
as The Kommandant
Few wartime prisoners have attempted escape quite as many times as bumbling RAF Officer James Forrester. Though Officer Forrester has twenty-three esc...
A Question of Attribution
1991
as Donleavy
Sir Anthony Blunt, who was a Soviet agent for 25 years, is routinely questioned and gives no answers, but is knighted and works as Director of the Cou...
Smack and Thistle
1991
as Sir Horace Wimbol
With a drug-addled lifestyle and a prison sentence firmly behind him, Abel is determined to go straight and stay clean... as soon as he's seen to one ...
Hawks
1988
as SAAB Salesman
Two terminally ill patients in a hospital yearn for relief from their predicament. With little or no friends, they form an uneasy alliance and plot an...
A Fish Called Wanda
1988
as Judge
While a diamond advocate attempts to steal a collection of diamonds, troubles arise when he realises he’s not the only one after the collection.
Season's Greetings
1986
as Bernard
Adaptation of Alan Ayckbourn's black comedy about eight adults trying to have a happy family Christmas and failing dismally.
Clockwise
1986
as Headmaster
School headmaster Brian Stimpson is obsessed with timeliness, order, and discipline. Brian misses his train after meticulously preparing a speech for ...
The Insurance Man
1986
as The Angry Doctor
Franz, a young man, works in a dye factory in Prague. One day he notices a rash-like eczema, growing on his hands. All attempts to treat it with ointm...
A Zed & Two Noughts
1985
as Fallast
Twin zoologists lose their wives in a car accident and become obsessed with decomposing animals.
Inside Rooms: 26 Bathrooms, London & Oxfordshire
1985
as Narrator
Greenaway's short documentary shows 26 bathrooms, each representing a letter of the alphabet.
Absurd Person Singular
1985
as Ronald Brewster-Wright
A movie in three acts following three couples who, over three years, each host a Christmas party. The camera stays in the kitchen and we are treated t...
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
1983
as Jimmy Anderson
46-year-old Reginald Iolanthe Perrin is suffering a midlife crisis and tries to escape his dreary life.
The Honorary Consul
1983
as British Ambassador
Set in a small politically unstable Latin American country, the story follows the half English and half Latino Dr. Eduardo Plarr, who left his home to...
The Houseboy
1982
as Eric
Both George and Eric, lovers for a number of years, seek to recapture their lost youth with the new hotel houseboy, at the expense of each other.
Mr. Kershaw's Dream System
1982
as Psychiastrist
A man grows insane when he hears the beeping of a Monarch telephone, and he seeks help of a psychiatrist.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
1981
as Quince
Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the fore...
Safe at Work?
1980
as Narrator
Made for senior and middle British Rail management and supervisory staff, to stimulate discussion and provoke action, by alerting them to their respon...
The Outsider
1979
as Col. Wyndham
Michael Flaherty (Craig Wasson), an American Vietnam veteran of Irish descent, returns to Belfast to join the cause of his grandfather, Seamus (Sterli...
Loyalties
1976
as Graviter
During a weekend at a country house in the 1920s, a Jewish outsider accuses a former officer of theft, setting off a tragic chain of events.
A Story to Frighten the Children
1976
as Det. Chief Insp. Harris
The story of a brutal crime in a high-rise estate; a girl walking home at night is raped and murdered, and the attitude of some is not always sympathe...
The Battle of Billy's Pond
1976
as First Policeman
A huge chemical company pays illegal dumpers for disposal of chemical waste dangerous to the environment.
Goodbye
1975
as Jack
"All I said was the gramophone's too loud." Tony and Zoe Lyle 's silly row starts like any other, but Tony finds that Zoe means it this time. She's wa...
O Lucky Man!
1973
as Examination Doctor/Basil Keyes
An ambitious coffee salesman has a series of improbable and ironic adventures seemingly designed to challenge his naive idealism.
Only Make Believe
1973
as Richard Nicholls
Playwright Christopher Hudson finds his medical problem hinders his writing. He employs secretary Sandra George and dictates his new play to her, but ...
Doctor Who: The Mutants
1972
as Administrator
The Time Lords send the Doctor and Jo on a mission to deliver a sealed message pod to an unknown party aboard a Skybase orbiting the planet Solos in t...
Michael Regan
1971
as Chief Superintendent
Under stress, Irish tenant farmer Michael Regan, suddenly snaps one day and locks himself in his home, threatening the lives of his wife and child.
The High Game
1970
as Man at the Clinic
The owner of a drinking club in London's Shepherd Market becomes invovled in a game of intrigue, blackmail and murder.
Doctor Who and the Silurians
1970
as Masters
Investigating mysterious power failures and a death at an underground research centre, The Doctor discovers a colony of Silurians - prehistoric, intel...
Cathy Come Home
1966
as Property Agent
A British woman faces a downward social climb thanks to her country's rigid and problem-ridden welfare system.
No Place Like Earth
1965
as Chief Officer
Earth is no more, destroyed by nuclear war; but itinerant handyman Bert Foster, wandering the canals of Mars, is possessed by a restlessness for a hom...
Ring of Spies
1964
as Police Officer (uncredited)
The film is based on the actual events of the Portland Spy Ring trial in the U.K. A disgruntled Navy Clerk is transferred to a secret research establi...
Incident at Midnight
1963
as Dr. Tanfield
In a late night chemist a shot bank robber has been taken for treatment, and to rendezvous with the gang leader.
A Prize of Arms
1962
as Cpl. Myers
A criminal gang sets out to pull off the heist of a large army payroll.