Poldark series 4: Osborne Whitworth star Christian Brassington looks back on the vicar’s dramatic storyline
"He certainly deserves some sort of retribution," says the actor. And the character certainly got that... CONTAINS SPOILERS
Osborne Whitworth is no more. Poldark's randy Reverend will no more go a-toe sucking, ravishing local women, and sucking up to the toffs.
In episode five of series four, the priest was dragged from his horse after an altercation with Arthur Solway – husband of Ossie’s mistress Rowella – and disappeared into the woods, squealing like a pig. His lifeless body was found in the morning.
The ghastly man – whose antics have been so brilliantly brought to screen by Christian Brassington – will be seen no more.
Brassington, who's lovely in real life, tells RadioTimes.com that he will miss playing the role, but admits that he is glad his character was killed off – and few Poldark fans would disagree that he had it coming.
“I am personally sad to see him go; I just loved playing him, being in the show and being with the cast,” says Brassington. “So I’m sad that he’s gone. But as a character – and there are few people that you could ever say this about – maybe the world is a better place without Reverend Osborne Whitworth."
"I don’t know whether I've ever wished death upon anyone, but he certainly deserved some sort of retribution, didn’t he?" he adds. "He was awful.”
Filming the death scene was, he says, “exciting and slightly terrifying”, but he was helped by good work from his horse Erasmus and Ossie's handsome stunt double.
“There was a lovely, lovely horse called Erasmus and his horse wranglers; they were wonderful and he was great," he says.
"The stuntman did the majority of the really exciting stuff – a big kind of macho guy, good looking, dark-haired. [Make-up designer] Pippa Woods and the hair and make-up team, [costume designers] Howard Burden and Mandy Perryman and the costume team did such a great job of transforming him into me."
So, there it is. No more Ossie. But at least Brassington's real wife and "work wife" (Ellise Chappell, who plays the put-upon Morwenna) will see the bright side.
As Brassington previously told us – he really enjoyed putting on the vicar's voice off set to tease both women. And neither of them liked it very much...
This article was originally published on 8 July 2018
