In the 1980s, he was involved with two dramatisations of Sherlock Holmes stories. He played "with chilling authority" in the words of writer David Stuart Davies, Professor Moriarty in "The Baker Street Boys" (1982), and "with great panache" Inspector Lestrade in the Granada Television series "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes). Producer Michael Cox of the Granada Television series for Sherlock Holmes stated frankly that they were given the best Lestrade of his generation. In the 1981 TV production of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", he portrayed Max Quordlepleen, an entertainer who hosts at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.