Brian Blessed: Inspired By Fry On Qi Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Brian Blessed's built like a barn door
A miner's son with a lion's roar
An undertaker, a plasterer's aid.
From RAF to drama, the leap he made
He's acted the ghost of Hamlet's Father
Richard IV in the first Black Adder
The voice of the rabbit in Peppa Pig.
Shakespearean acting's Mr Big

Flash Gordon knew him as Prince Vultan,
He headlined the panto of Peter Pan,
He's the intro for adverts of Orange phones.
That man's got showmanship hewn in his bones

He was Old Deuteronomy starring in Cats
He's been Captain Hook in piratical hats
He's TomTom's voice on its satnav devices
He could sell anything, mothballs to ices

He's aped Pavarotti, he's climbed Mont Blanc
Mount Everest too, with his crampons on
He trekked on foot to the far North Pole
His Surrey's answer to Old King Cole

His beard's so bushy, it could contain
Two squirrels, a mouse and a weather vane
Up Kilimanjaro he sprinted with ease
He's battled through rain forests' bugs and trees

Like Thor his voice goes boom boom boom
A King Kong giant, he fills a room
He lives in the middle of woods and rills
With a huge menagerie rescued from ills
There's ducks, there's ponies sharing his home
Donkeys and robins are free to roam
Sharing the biscuits and bonhomie
With the rest of the Blessed family

And when he dies and he's laid to rest,
Twill be truly stated that man was blessed