Curtain Call: Ian Gelder

"“Elected officials, they just come and go. They were here before him, they’ll be here long after he’s gone. So will we. The civil service, John. Cockroaches of government.” —Ian Gelder as Mr. Dekker in Torchwood"

Ian Gelder is one of the last of the major BBC players who were cast on Game of Thrones way back in Season 1, when the BBC’s influence was still heavily felt, despite the fact that it was no longer HBO’s production partner for the show. Many of the “older” generation of characters were played by illustrious figures from the BBC acting world, whether it was Sean Bean as Ned Stark or Charles Dance as Tywin Lannister. Meanwhile, many of the side players, like Tywin’s brother Kevan, were played by those who had spend their careers as character actors in BBC productions.

Most of those early actors have now left the show, their characters killed off in one way or another. Ian Gelder’s Kevan and Julian Glover’s Pycelle were two of the last to remain, and they both went out in “The Winds of Winter.” But the irony of Kevan being played by Ian Gelder—an actor who has been working steadily in BBC productions since the mid-70s—didn’t hit me until I read A Dance with Dragons after Season 1.

Gelder has been a side character in tons of productions, from the long-running doctor based soap, Casualty, to Absolutely Fabulous, to the Morse reboot Endeavour, to his newest part in another long-running soap, EastEnders. But one of his most memorable turns was in Torchwood, where he played a character who was, in his own words, “a cockroach of government.” In King’s Landing, Kevan too was a cockroach of the Lannister family, keeping his head down and his profile low, lest someone hungry for power find him in the way.

With Cersei taken down by the High Sparrow in the novels, Kevan steps up, and suddenly discovers that not only is he not opposed to being the power behind the throne, he’s actually not so bad at it. Until, of course, he sticks his head just a little too far up…and someone hungry for power found him in the way.

In the books, that person is Varys, who assassinates him much like Pycelle was assassinated in the show’s sixth season finale. On Game of Thrones, Kevan’s character is pushed a little further and raises his head a little higher, and with silent glee denies Cersei the right to stand in an advisory position by her son. (Gelder’s ability to channel silent glee is one of his many attributes.) Whereas in the books, one is surprised to discover Kevan’s head has raised too high, in the TV show it is more obvious. Whatever Cersei is planning, Kevan will definitely be one of the names on her hit list.

So here is to Gelder, who survived for six seasons by staying in the shadows, or offscreen altogether. Too bad he finally stood tall.