Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009); as the villainous power plant worker Anatoly Dyatlov in the chilling HBO/Sky miniseries Chernobyl (2019); and, from 2011 onwards, as the combustible, inexplicably shirtless Martin Goodman in Channel 4’s Friday Night Dinner (“lovely bit of squirrel,” moving fork to mouth) with Tamsin Greig.
In all three roles he was never recognisable as whoever he really was. For Ritter was an actor who “disappeared” inside his character.
He always seemed to be patiently volcanic and, on the other hand, anonymously scrofulous. When he was on stage – and he appeared often with the RSC and the National Theatre, especially – I tried, and failed, to pin down his identity.
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