Anthony Head, star of stage, screen, and Gold Blend ads, is currently starring in virtual reality series VR.5. Inevitably, M.J. Simpson felt is his duty to pop round the flat to borrow a jar of instant...

Those of you currently enjoying VR.5 on Sky may have been surprised to find one of the main characters killed off just three episodes into the first series. But I'm willing to bet you were even more surprised when you saw who replaced him--Lori Singer's original mentor, the Professor, was out, and in came the much more mysterious and Machiavellian Oliver Sampson, played by popular British actor, Anthony Head, known up and down the country as "that bloke from the Gold Blend ads."

It's a good, juicy part, but when Head auditioned for the role, he was as much in the dark about the character as anyone...

"They told me very little about the role," he explains. "Then, on my second reading, they started to explain roughly what it was all about. He's a bit of a Svengali figure, is Sampson. You can't work out whether he's taking care of Sydney Bloom (Singer), or usurping her. Initially, he gives very little away, and it's exasperating because of that, but in timeyou start to discover why he's such a strange chap, and what dark secrets are locked in his past."

Conceived as a mid-season replacement show, VR.5 ran for a mere ten episodes in the States, although a further three were made so that the series could be sold into syndication and to foreign markets.

"We had some extremely good viewing figures," sighs Head, "but they were very up and down. So while the overall numbers weren't stunning, the response we got was brilliant--it's developed an enormous cult audience. In America, people have even gone to Canada to get copies of th eshows that didn't get shown on Fox! In fact, there are still discussions about its future; it's by no means dead."

Of course, to many people Anthony Head is still "Mr. Gold Blend"--or "Mr. Taster's Choice" in the States, where the campaign is being remade for American audiences.

It's been very good to me," he smiles, when I ask him about the coffee ads. "Why should I deny it? It was just like doing a good little mini-series every six months for 40 seconds. The bottom line is that Gold Blend is something I'm proud of--it opened up a market in America for me, so I was able to go over there, and it made me box office over here for theatre."

Ah, theatre. Among Anthony's many theatrical roles is one that will be very familiar to most SFX readers--that of Frank N Further in The Rocky Horror Show. Like most people who have donned the trademark stockings and suspenders, Head had a whale of a time with the part...

"Wonderful!" he enthuses. "I did it four or five years ago, and they've asked me a few times if I'd do it again, but I didn't because it always meant touring. This time they said, 'Do you want to do just six weeks in the West End?' and I said 'Yes!' It's wonderfully wicked and very dark, and a great part to play. Where else do you get such a vibe off the audience?"

Indeed. The other notable genre entry in Head's VC is an episode of Highlander - The Series, in which he played, of all things, a suitably accented American ambassador...

"My character's son had raped a local girl, whose father just happened to be an Immortal. And so the guy laid siege to my chateau, and old Highlander turned up and helped me out. It was a good little episode."

Caption: British audiences can see Anthony in the new BBC series The Ghostbusters of Each Finchley (in which he plays an East End wide-boy who "sells cars to Ray Winston in Spain," according to Head). VR.5 is now showing on Sky One, every saturday, at 8pm. [Cast photo: Anthony Head, Michael Easton, David McCallum, Lori Singer, Louise Fletcher.]