Tim Bentinck writes to Madame Arcati

The Archers' star Tim Bentinck has written to Madame Arcati following my piece on Wyndham Richardson's short movie (see labels) starring the actor ...

Dear Madame Arcati,

What a charming fellow that Wyndham is. It was a joy working with him and his crew, extremely professional, very patient, but knew exactly what he wanted. He'll go far!

Funny to think that anyone should imagine I was taking the rise out of the Archers. As WR mentioned, we tried a few characters out before arriving at Dorset. It's probably more Bristol to a local ear - my wife Judy and I bought a house in Totterdown after I left the Bristol Old Vic School and we lived in the city for over five years, so Don [the character he plays in the film] is based on Bristolian mates.

The Archers is just one of my jobs, I do loads of voice work of all different types, commercials, narratives, animation, cartoons, dubbing, re-voicing (recently replaced all of Gerard Depardieu's dialogue in a movie). Check out my website at www.bentinck.net for examples. Recently went Through The Keyhole with David Frost and will be appearing in Jack Dee's 'Lead Balloon' in the summer.

Thanks for the heads up Madame! xxxTim

Tim Bentinck stars in plastic toys moc-doc

The actor Tim Bentinck - otherwise the 12th Earl of Portland but best known as David Archer in Radio 4's long-running radio soap The Archers - is the star of Wyndham Richardson's latest moc-doc, titled Don - Major Project. Tim plays the ghastly proprietor of "Dorset's 14th biggest import/export business of Chinese plastic toys", such as plastic farm animals, looking to hire a No 2.

I asked Wyndham - who's Duncan Fallowell's godson and director of the Duncan Fallowell movie (see labels) - what Don's all about ...

How did you get hold of Tim?

Tim has a personal website. I sent him a message through that with a link to Duncan's film. I explained this project and he kindly agreed to play the part of Don.

What have you got against plastic farm animals?

On the whole plastic animals are great actually, but not the ones in the film. I still can't believe I managed to find those terrible toys on eBay and had to pay £5 for them, they don't even stand up?! I wanted to play on the issue that there is so much useless rubbish around, yet people are able to make a living on it, or not, as in Don's case.

Is he sending up the Archers role a bit?

I wouldn't say so, no. Tim actually spends most of his time doing voice-over work for television commercials. He can do every accent in the book. We went through loads of different roles, all of which were great fun. Eventually we settled on Dorset which I think worked quite well.

What inspired your movie?

I'm a huge fan of Armando Iannucci who directed The Thick of It in which Tim also stars. I love the confrontations that take place in that series. People are always screwing each other. I wanted Don to get screwed over by someone who didn't even realise he was screwing him.

Was Tim in any way diva-ish? He's a star after all ...

Not for a second. He's a very down-to-earth and friendly bloke. He always offered advice and created a great atmosphere on set.

How goes with your course ... and career ambition ... ?

My course is over, Don was my graduation film. I now hope to concentrate on creating a body of work that can some day hit TV. Me and Duncan will most definitely be doing some more projects so look out for that! Duncan has some ideas up his sleeve which will make very interesting viewing.

Excellent. Keep in touch with Arcati. MAx

Tim Bentinck's website, click here