Robert Demeger - A Familiar Face

Just had a quick chat with Robert Demeger who is playing Arthur Kipps in The Woman In Black at the King’s Theatre, Leven Street, Monday-Saturday, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £14-£26.50, 0131-529 6000

Not only is Demeger a respected stage actor he’s also a familiar face on TV too with more than 60 credits on his CV including ‘four episodes of The Bill,’ of which he seems particularly proud.

His IMDB entry notes that he played Brian Loach in the 1992 episode A Can Of Worms, Chris Collins in The Protection Racket from 1995 and Up For Trouble in 1998. As of now, his fourth appearance remains a mystery.

Here’s an extract of what he had to say:

“I suppose you’d call me a jobbing actor. At one stage there was a rule that there had to be a two year gap between appearances in The Bill so that you wouldn’t be recognised. They ran out of actors quite quickly so I think, it’s down to about six months now.

My characters were all completely different, but each one was the villain of the episode. One of them was running a protection racket.

One of them was a chemist who was getting broken into by gangs of kids who were stealing certain drugs. So he poisoned those drugs so that when they stole them they died.

And another was a guy who built an extension on his house and was having a fight with his neighbours.

So they were all very different characters. I’d change my hairstyle and have a moustache or not have a moustache, and hope that people wouldn’t recognise me a year down the line.

These characters are great fun to play and, while I’m not saying that I wouldn’t want to play bigger parts, what I quite like about my career is that it does bob about from one thing or another.”