It's almost certainly a turning point in your life when people in the public eye that you've always thought of as being a similar age to you, perhaps a few years your senior, start to look old. Or perhaps it should be more accurate to say, start being cast in the role of older characters.
It's happened to me twice in the last week, and both instances occurred while I was spending my lunchtime watching Beyond Paradise. For the unfamiliar, this is the Kris Marshall-fronted follow-up to Death in Paradise, where his Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman character returns to the UK with his fiancée and begins a new life in the fictional Devon town of Shipton Abbott (in reality a Cornish fishing village named Looe). It's a fun show, but the specifics are beside the point for today.
Much like Death in Paradise, Beyond Paradise is a show where you will often see relatively famous faces putting in a guest appearance for an episode. I'm not talking about tedious celebrities who are famous for the sake of being famous (or, God forbid, "influencers") — I'm talking well-known, well-established actors who you will have almost certainly seen in something from the last 20-30 years.
In two episodes I've watched this week, I was mildly dismayed to see how much Mark Heap (who I will always think of as Brian from Spaced) and Caroline Quentin (whom I suspect most people will always think of as either Dorothy from Men Behaving Badly or Maddie from Jonathan Creek) have apparently aged. I still think of both of them in terms of their most famous roles, which are kind of timeless in their own sort of way. And so, despite seeing them in the credits of the show, I had to double-check that the characters I thought they were playing were, in fact, the actors I thought they were.
It was Mark Heap's episode first. He was playing an affluent middle-aged widower who lived in an old house with a lot of history, and he was haunted by visions of his departed wife — helped along by a criminal element, of course. When I first saw him, I thought "I vaguely recognise that person, who is it…? Is it Mark Heap? No, it can't be, he looks too old…" — and then the credits rolled, and I realised that it was, in fact, Mark Heap. It became a bit more obvious once the episode proper started and he got a few more lines, as he still has his very characteristic delivery and mannerisms.
Caroline Quentin was almost unrecognisable when I saw her playing a middle-aged farmer matriarch. She had completely obscured what I think of as her particular characteristic mannerisms, so it took me a lot longer to clock it was her than I did for Mark Heap. But again, she seems to be doing a great job.
I know it sounds harsh to say that people "look old", but it's not really about the individuals themselves. Both Mark Heap and Caroline Quentin are excellent actors, and it's good that they are clearly still getting work and settling into roles that suit them well as their career continues. I can imagine the acting business becomes considerably more challenging once you hit a certain age, so I have all the respect in the world for people I was watching when I was in my teens still getting acting jobs to this day.
No, what it's really about is the growing sense of consciousness that time is passing, that you can't go back, and that things continue to change around you as you continue on life's journey. Some of those changes are for the best — even if they might not seem like it at the time — while others can be painful and lead to regrets. And seeing things like actors you recognise looking visibly much older than they were the last time you really noticed them? It brings all that into focus, and inevitably makes you wonder if you've done the right things, if there are still things you "need" to do, and quite how much time you might have left in which to do all of them.
It's a little maudlin, I know, but I suspect it's something that everyone, once they reach a certain age, has to start coming to terms with. Nothing stays the same for ever; nothing lasts forever. You just have to enjoy everything you love — people, places and things — while they are here with you in the moment, and to continue enjoying the memories you have of those things for as long as you are able.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.