Tributes paid to actor David Ryall

Tributes have been paid to actor David Ryall, who died on Christmas Day at the age of 79.

Although best known recently for roles in the Harry Potter film series and TV comedy Outnumbered, he is remembered by the theatre community for his plethora of performances for companies including the RSC and National Theatre.

He played the title role in King Lear at the Cockpit Theatre earlier this year, a performance reviewed by WhatsOnStage's Michael Coveney:

Ryall reading the telephone directory would be worth seeing… [he] enters the first scene, wearing a grey greatcoat and spectacles, clutching the script, in a wheelchair. At the end, he's put Cordelia in that same wheelchair and dies in her lap, letting the script drop to the floor. Like Prospero, he drowns his book, discards his knowledge, and passes on unencumbered by the play or his own struggle. It's a powerful and original coda to a performance that you'll be glad to have seen…

He had to perform the run with a script in hand due to his recent course of chemotherapy.

After studying at RADA Ryall worked in regional repertory before joining Laurence Olivier's National Theatre company, where he performed in plays by Tom Stoppard and Peter Shaffer, among others.

Ryall subsequently worked at the National under Peter Hall and Richard Eyre, in productions including Guys and Dolls and Twelfth Night, and enjoyed a successful spell at the RSC during which he played Polonius opposite Alex Jennings' Hamlet. More recently, he was seen in Patrick Marber's Don Juan in Soho at the Donmar Warehouse.

His daughter Charlie Ryall, who acted alongside him in King Lear, said: "Please take a moment to remember his huge five-decade-spanning career outside of the more well-known TV and film."

Mark Gatiss paid tribute to Ryall on Twitter, calling him "a twinkling, brilliant, wonderful actor I was privileged to call a friend."