In a world where fame is measured by the number of times your face has been plastered on a coffee jar, Anthony Head has achieved the impossible: he’s escaped the cling-film of obscurity and landed in the warm, cuddly bosom of Ted Lasso. Yes, dear reader, the man who once whispered sweet nothings about Nescafe into the nation’s collective ear is now swanning about as a football-mad millionaire. Life, it seems, has a sense of humour more bitter than a double espresso left on the radiator overnight.
Let’s rewind, shall we? The year was 1986. Thatcher was in power, the Rubik’s Cube was the height of technological innovation, and a young Anthony Head was peddling freeze-dried coffee with the gravitas of a Shakespearean actor. Those adverts were a masterclass in suburban escapism. He’d lean in, all suave and whisker-tickling, and murmur about the aroma of Colombian beans. And we, the gullible masses, believed. We bought that coffee. We bought that dream. We even bought the mugs.
But Head, bless his perennially arched eyebrows, was not content to be the King of Caffeine. He wanted more. He wanted to be the King of Camp. Enter: 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'. As Giles, the tweed-clad Watcher, he became the patron saint of British repression. He shuffled, he stammered, he dispensed dusty wisdom with a side order of mild panic. And he did it all while wearing glasses that screamed ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe, mostly tax returns.’
And then, silence. A long, dark night of the soul where he appeared in things like 'Merlin' and 'The Inbetweeners' – decent enough, but hardly world-beating. One imagines him in a dusty theatre dressing room, staring at a photograph of himself with a jar of coffee and weeping softly. But then, like a phoenix from the ashes of primetime ITV, came 'Ted Lasso'. And Head, now adorned with a tie that cost more than most people’s rent, is playing the chairman of AFC Richmond. He’s got the swagger, the suits, the inscrutable neutral expression of a man who has seen the future and it involves a lot of tax avoidance.
It’s a triumph. A glorious, absurd triumph. From shilling instant granules to rubbing shoulders with Jason Sudeikis. The symmetry is almost too perfect. It’s the journey of a man who started selling dreams to mid-morning television viewers and ended up selling the dream of a plucky underdog football club to the world.
But let’s not get misty-eyed. This is still the man who made us think that the sound of a coffee jar being opened was the greatest symphony ever composed. He’s a survivor, a chameleon, a louche charlatan of the highest order. And we love him for it. Because in a world of Netflix algorithms and Twitter spats, Anthony Head reminds us that you can start as a purveyor of brown sludge and end up as a beloved icon of wholesome TV. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and pour myself a Nescafe. For old times’ sake.
