He’s a real-life Gaston, if Gaston were nice. No one shouts like Brian Blessed. No one laughs like Brian Blessed. No one attempts to climb Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen to celebrate turning sixty like Brian Blessed. (He failed, but come on.) If you need an enormous booming man, he’s your guy. No wonder he’s played Henry VIII three times; I am astounded to discover he was cast in Henry VIII and His Six Wives as someone else. The only explanation I have is that it was 1972, and they didn’t realize what they had.

And he’s boomed at the best of them. In I, Claudius. In four Kenneth Branagh Shakespeares. In The Black Adder; he apparently claims that he couldn’t fit playing Queen Bess into his schedule for the second series. He directed himself as Lear. At dear Alan Rickman in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. At the Knight of the Woeful Countenance in Man of La Mancha. In of course Flash Gordon, which I haven’t actually seen; I assume he booms at everyone, from what I know of it. No wonder so many of us think of his name in caps lock.

Yet I know nothing but good about the man. I’ve seen him on the odd interview and panel show, and he seems nice enough; well, it’s easy to do that if you’re trying and not a total sociopath. More, though, I’ve never heard a bad story about him, even when other people are talking. I do watch British panel shows, and there’s a particular strained sense when they’re talking about someone they don’t outright want to say they dislike but they dislike and everyone knows it, and there isn’t even that, much less the utter contempt that’s blatant in a few cases. Everyone I’ve seen with a Brian Blessed story seems to have one about how nice he is.

I won’t quite say that I would watch anything he does; I’ve looked over some of what he’s done and, yeah, I’m okay. I’ve been meaning to get to Flash Gordon for years, but I think I’ll pass on the Focus on the Family audio version of Les Miserables. I don’t trust them to understand the point of the story anyway. Still, if I did waste my time with it, it still wouldn’t be a total waste, because I assume he’s if nothing else an intriguing choice for Jean Valjean. And I’ve never seen a Christmas panto, but I’d watch one run by Blessed.

He used to play Vultan when he and his friends acted out bits of Flash Gordon as children, and I imagine he was filled with glee to play the part for real. Branagh apparently wanted him as Odin, which would have been very different but very interesting. He has apparently long been willing to take on the Doctor, if they want him to. He is a man of great willingness to explore his craft. I find that admirable. It seems he’s the son of a coal miner who didn’t want a coal miner for a son—three of his uncles died in the pit, and his father was determined that Brian would do better. He definitely deserves our thanks.

I’ll probably have to rent Flash Gordon to see it; consider supporting my Patreon!