A classically trained actor renowned for his love of Shakespeare, his extraordinary career has taken him to extraordinary heights. But he admits, while enjoying the sun at the stage door of the Playhouse this week, it has been one role in particular which has assured his fame – that of Geoffrey the Butler in hit 1990s US comedy The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The part saw him playing alongside a youthful Will Smith and an all-African-American cast in the global NBC smash series telling the story of a street kid, West Philadelphia-born and raised, who is sent to live with his rich uncle and aunt in the wealthy Los Angeles neighbourhood of Bel-Air – with predictably hilarious results.
“You dream of a part like that when you are young,” he says, while taking a break between performances of his touring production of The School for Scandal, which has run all week until tonight. “For sheer fame and notoriety, playing Geoffrey has certainly been a highlight of my career.” The show may have ended almost 30 years ago, but Joseph, 77, is still instantly recognisable.
“If I walk into any room, I am recognised,” he smiles. “It doesn’t matter where it is – from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. And it’s a pleasure.
” The St Lucia-born actor who moved to Peckham, South London, as a child, has done much since, of course, starring in Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in Much Ado About Nothing and King Lear with Shakespeare’s Globe T.
