Peter Tuddenham

Peter Tuddenham, actor: born Ipswich, Suffolk 27 November 1918; twice married (two sons, and one son deceased); died Worthing, East Sussex 9 July 2007.
At the age of 60, after spending more than half his adult life as an actor, Peter Tuddenham became most familiar to television viewers as the voices of three computers in the cult science-fiction serial Blakes 7.
Heard in 49 of the 52 episodes of the programme - which ran from 1978 to 1981 - about a group of outlaw revolutionaries fighting the Fascist-like Federation in the second century of the third calendar, Tuddenham gave each machine a distinct personality: the dour, non-committal master computer Zen ("That information is not available") and the tetchy super-computer Orac aboard the Liberator and, following the destruction of that original starship, the cringeing, compliant Slave on its replacement, the Scorpio.
Orac joined Slave after Zen was destroyed, along with the Liberator, in an episode that saw the dying computer appear almost human for once, apologising for not managing to repair the ship and referring to itself for the first time, with the words: "I have failed you. I am sorry."
Such touches owed much to Blakes 7's creator, Terry Nation, who had previously invented the Daleks in Doctor Who, for which Tuddenham also voiced "characters" in three different stories: the Computer in "The Ark in Space" (1975), the alien Mandragora Helix in "The Masque of Mandragora"(1976) and Brain in "Time and the Rani"(1987).
Shortly before his introduction to sci-fi television, Tuddenham enjoyed his finest hour in the cinema, again unseen, when he provided the voice of Old Tom in Akenfield (1974), Peter Hall's moving, lyrical version of Ronald Blythe's book about life in a small Suffolk village. Almost all of the on-screen characters were played by local non-professionals, who improvised their lines in a story that begins with the funeral of Old Tom. Tuddenham's voice-over readings from Blythe's book, delivered in broad Suffolk tones, provided the historical context.
Just two months after its cinema release, Akenfield was shown on ITV, whose London weekend franchise-holder, LWT, financed the film, and it attracted 14 million viewers. For Tuddenham, doing the voice-over was not just a job, but a chance to put his native Suffolk on the film map.
Born in Ipswich in 1918, a couple of weeks after the end of the First World War, Tuddenham was brought up in nearby Felixstowe. He gained a love of acting through appearing in Shakespearian plays at his school and joined a repertory theatre company on Hastings Pier in 1937.
He was called up by the Royal Army Service Corps as a private in October 1939. Tuddenham's performing talents were spotted and he became a member of a Stars in Battledress concert party, alongside Charlie Chester and Terry-Thomas, that was the first to entertain the troops on the Normandy beaches after D-Day, in 1944.
Continuing his stage career when peace came, he appeared in a revival of Ivor Novello's musical The Dancing Years (on tour 1946, Casino Theatre 1947) and the original West End cast of Noël Coward's Ace of Clubs (Cambridge Theatre, 1950), playing a Teddy boy in the "Three Juvenile Delinquents" sketch.
Tuddenham's earliest television appearances included parts in Clara, The Maid of Durham: Or Home Sweet Home (1955) and the BBC's "Musical Playhouse" Ivor Novello productions The Dancing Years (as Franzel, 1959) and Perchance To Dream (as Lord Failsham, 1959). He also had several roles in soap opera, on radio in Mrs Dale's Diary (as Dr Mitchell, who famously once sat on Mrs Freeman's cat) and Waggoners' Walk, and as George Banham in ITV's East Anglian vets serial Weavers Green (1966).
On television, Tuddenham was a regular as the pub landlord in Backs to the Land (1977-78) and as William in Double First (1988). He also guest-starred as priests in the sitcom Nearest and Dearest (1968) and the P.D. James thriller A Mind To Murder (1995), and played doctors in Quiller (1975), The Lost Boys (1978) and Nanny (1981, 1982) and an auctioneer in Lovejoy (1986).
A regular guest at Blakes 7 fan conventions, Tuddenham voiced Orac and Slave once more in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation Blakes 7: the Syndeton experiment (1998) and revived Orac - complete with a newly developed taste for alcohol - in Blake's Junction 7 (2004), a short film send-up of the sci-fi serial.