It seems strange to be writing about Charles Thake in the past tense, he was always so full of life and indeed such a life-enhancer. Oh sure to live to 90 is a pretty good effort, but Charles, even in his later years, never seemed… old. I always saw him as somehow permanently 40ish.

I got to know Charlie well during, what might be called, the Atturi years in the 1970s and 80s. He was a distinguished protagonist with what was probably, the nearest thing to a live theatre repertory company Malta has ever experienced. Charles specialised in comedy and anyone fortunate enough to catch him, along with his co-star Joe Izzo, in an Atturi farce or modern comedy would attest to his consummate skill as a comic actor. He was not just technically gifted; he exuded exuberance and sheer enjoyment in every role he played.

He also had a serious side and could quote reams of Shakespearean prose and verse. I personally only ever saw Charles Thake in one Shakespeare play, The Comedy of Errors in San Anton Gardens way back in 1970. He had the, not usually rewarding, cameo part of Doctor Pinch, which, I need hardly add, he made truly memorable, as only he could.

He spent the early part of his life in Isla, (Senglea), where he experienced the devastation of the Second World War bombing blitz at first hand. A few years back I worked as a fixer for a BBC film crew who were here to shoot the reminiscences of local people who had lived through the years 1939 to 1945. Obviously, Charles Thake was high on my list of interviewees – and they subsequently shot a sequence for the series at his home in Santa Venera. The crew set up the camera, did a quick sound check and off he went. Charlie managed to talk uninterruptedly to camera for around 20 minutes with not an umm or an arr. The crew were bowled over by his professionalism and just how interesting his account of those terrible days had been.

Another string to Charlie’s bow was cabaret. I’m told that in his day he was a quite brilliant stand-up comedian, with material in both Maltese and English. But it is as a truly exceptional comic actor that I shall remember him. He was equally at home in a Ray Cooney farce or the more sophisticated comedy of Alan Ayckbourn.

For his “proper” job, Charlie worked for many years with vulnerable people and endured all the stresses and strains that that sort of work entails. His theatre work must therefore have served as something of an antidote to his working life.

And now he’s gone, which is not easy to take in somehow. Nonetheless, he is someone who has left behind him a monumental legacy of good humour and downright fun, which is not a bad epitaph at all.

 

Jon Rosser