who perceived Alf as "the voice of reason". Mitchell reprised the role of Alf Garnett in the films Till Death Us Do Part (1969) and The Alf Garnett Saga (1972), in the ATV series Till Death... (1981), and in the BBC series In Sickness and in Health (1985–92). He also reprised his role as Alf Garnett in 1983 in the television series The Main Attraction where comedians recreated their famous acts from their past in front of a live and television audience (similar to An Audience with... that began in 1976). In 1997 he played the role in An Audience with Alf Garnett. The same year, ITV aired a series of mini-episodes called A Word With Alf, featuring Alf and his friends. All the TV shows and both films were written by Johnny Speight. When Speight died in 1998, the character of Alf Garnett was retired at Mitchell's request. Mitchell had a long and distinguished career on stage and television. Other small screen roles included a 13-episode series, Men of Affairs with Brian Rix (ITV, 1973–74), based on the West End hit farce Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! There were also performances in 1975 in Play for Today (showing that he could play a serious character role in the episode, Moss), as William Wardle, a crooked accountant in The Sweeney episode Big Spender (Thames Television for ITV, 1978), Lovejoy (BBC), Waking the Dead (BBC), Kavanagh QC (Central Television for ITV, he played a concentration camp survivor in the episode Ancient History), as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (BBC, 1980) and Gormenghast (BBC, 2000). In 1991 he starred as Ivan Fox, a Jewish atheist from London living in Belfast in So You Think You've Got Troubles, a BBC One comedy series written by Maurice Gran and Laurence Marks. In 2001, he appeared in a Christmas Special episode of Last of the Summer Wine, "Potts in Pole Position". He was a subject of the television programme This Is Your Life in 1972 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. On stage he received extensive critical acclaim for his performances as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman at the National Theatre directed by Michael Rudman (1979, being originally cast in the role by Stephen Barry at the Playhouse in Perth, Australia); Harold Pinter's The Caretaker at the National Theatre; Pinter's The Homecoming at London's Comedy Theatre (1991) and