Obituary: Edward Duke

FURTHER to your obituary of Edward Duke (by Adam Benedick, 29 January), may I add that his talents did stretch beyond the monocle and brilliantine roles in which he so excelled? writes Graeme Fife.

At Chichester, in 1992, while delivering his stiff-bosomed-shirt number in Preserving Mr Panmure in the Main House, he took the part of Merlin in my Chambers of Glass. Duke turned in a magnetic account of the man who can read everything and everyone except his own self.

His flicks of wit, mercurial shifts of temper and mood of troubled dignity were memorable. He confessed that he was scared of the part and, characteristically, said he was only doing it, of course, because one of his relatives owed me money. He not only effaced the debt; he let slip a seductive glimpse of a richer and more complex gift than he cared or was often asked to reveal.