Oct 21 2023

Haydn Gwynne

It was a bit of a shock yesterday to see a Guardian article on the life of Haydn Gwynne prompted by her having just passing away at the age of 66.

I first encountered Hadyn Gwynne on TV starring opposite Warren Clarke in Nice Work, a BBC adaptation of one of David Lodge’s comic novels set in and around Rummidge University. She followed that with a supporting role in Drop the Dead Donkey on Channel 4 but I’d not seen her on TV much since.

I was vaguely aware that after making a splash on TV in those two roles she’d ended up doing much more more theatre work in recent years1 but yet it feels strange that she’s gone now. She felt like an actor I could always expect to be reliably good when she showed up on our screens, one of those who never quite got the profile her work merited.

As it turns out, given that since I saw that Guardian article yesterday news has got out that Sir Bobby Charlton has died Gwynne’s passing will beb eclipsed in the media by a whole bunch of articles about the passing of the Manchester United stalwart and World Cup winner in the UK media.


  1. Her obituary spells that out in considerable detail.↩︎