Happy is the man who knows that Sidwell Owen has retired from acting forever (as of January 2012) and the UK, and that man is me. For those of you unaware of the existence of Sidenham Owen, he read Classics at Oxford (a contemporary of Boris Johnson) but decided to go into acting after his translation of Book Seven of the Aeneid was poorly reviewed by E.V. Rieu in the Times Literary Supplement. Despite early promise at RADA, his lacklustre performance in a West End production of Hamlet, in the title role, saw him question his choice of career and, as he says in his autobiography, In My Own Words, in his own words, "I really thought I might jack it all in and go back on the bins."
It was only a chance encounter with old friend and fellow actor John Altman (they had previously met on the set of Return of the Jedi, Altman playing a rebel pilot, whilst a young Owen played the ewok that got shot by a Scout Walker) that saw him land the part of Ricky Butcher in Eastenders. Siddartha Owen would continue to leave the show and come back each time he ran out of money for the next two decades, all the while appearing in night clubs and going out with top-heavy models. As he once claimed, 'I like them big,' though that may have been Dean Gaffney. However in January 2012 he announced he was leaving Eastenders and television forever, giving up acting to go and run a restaurant in France and not coming back.
So I was bitterly disappointed, to the point of wanting to cry, when, whilst shopping in the local supermarket with my infant daughter, to see his stupid face staring at me from the newspaper. Wearing glasses. Now in this age of eye surgery, wearing glasses is a conscious choice, usually to try and look clever. Sid was back in the UK to attend a party to celebrate the return to our screens of Dallas. Many of you (ie. the two people nice enough to admit to following this blog, other than the hordes who want to see 'Marc' 'Singer' 'naked') will be aware of my love of Dallas and my deep joy at its return. To put this in context, there was the tiniest sliver of a chance that I may have been considered for the position of informing the viewing public about the world of Dallas, it's cast, their past, a fourteen year story arc that had everything. In the end they went with John Barrowman. Fair enough. He knows less about Dallas than I do, but he's been on television before, people have heard of him and he sounds American. Likewise the party, it's not something that would mean I would get to watch more Dallas, and aside from the stars, the guest list was pretty lukewarm (Gloria Hunniford, Roger Daltrey and Vanessa Feltz). But Sid Cunting Owen. FFS.
The thing is, in a while, Larry Hagman will pass away. He's 80 and he's lived a full and exciting life (quite a bit of it as a fictional character). There's going to be a funeral, and it's going to be an episode of Dallas. Heck, Anne Haddy (Helen Daniels from Neighbours) wanted to do it and she was no J.R.
Ewing.
