Tony Capstick

Peripheral

Peripheral

Dedicated Member
Tony Capstick was one of the original panda car team along with P.C. Cooper, played by Ken Kitson. He played his part extremely well but I never see him mentioned in the wonderful selection of letters that come into these forums. Tony lived in a beautiful part of South Yorkshire, Greasbrough, three miles from where I live. You can see from the first pic just how just how nice it is. If you look carefully on the horizon, you will see a small tower on the left. The other picture is a close of the tower which is called Hoober Stand. You can read all about Hoober if you type in Hoober Stand in your search engine. Tony Capstick lived in a cottage next to the Stand. I missed him in the SW series when he died but Louis Emerick was a good replacement for the part.
 

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In a village not too far from me which I visit at least once a week [houses are too expensive to move there] the old tower has been converted into a micro Pub [very tastefully I might add] . The Pele Tower had nothing in it so the owner put in two floors with the bar and toilet on the ground floor. The door and all original features have been kept , the first floor is a really nice seating area and the top floor hosts musical events , the original staircase remained up to what are the new floor so the owners have utilised them but the steps down to the bar are quite daunting and you have to watch your head on the way down if you are over 5 foot 4 inches. It is situated next to the village Church in Corbridge.

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I thought that Tony and Ken were the perfect comedy couple.
Tony's timing was absolutely amazing....and his deadpan face and wonderful tone and accent when he delivered those lines was absolute comedy gold.
When the pair encountered Smiler's trousers and spoke about the aliens who suck the body clean the dialogue between the two was fantastic,as was the "flowers on the trunch" conversation.
I think that Roy could and may have given our boys in blue a greater amount of time on screen,because they were a genuinely funny couple.
 
I don't believe he was dropped from the show. He died after his final series appearance was filmed but before they started filming the next series. It is interesting that the one reference to him after simply indicates the character transferred to Huddersfield.

And technically the Kitson/Emerick duo appears before the Kitson/Capstick duo. Tony''s first appearance is in "Big Day at Dream Acres" but that was without Kitson. He became a regular in 1990 with Kitson. Meanwhile, Kitson first appears several years earlier in "Getting Sam Home," but Kitson and Emerick appear as a duo in "Three Men and a Mangle," which was the series before Tony Capstick became a regular.
 
Being in the US, I didn't know most of the actors history when I started watching Summerwine. Over the years I've had a lot of enjoyment in exploring those histories. A few years ago I did deep dive into Tony Capstick's musical career and listened to a long audio only interview he did later in his life about how he got into music and what those early years were like and how it forced him to develop his comedic wit. A fascinating person.
 
I've just compared an image of Tony from his first appearence in LOTSW (Big Day at Dream Acres) and his final one (Yours Truly - If You're Not Careful). His immediate cause of death was an aneurysm, following pneumonia, but the he's so much thinner in the later image that he appears to have been taking no nutrition, just alcohol. He was only 59 years old when he died, but he looks and sounds at least 30 years older than that. His speech became progressively slightly slurred, although his comedic timing was still right on.
 
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