He made his television debut in 1976, in an episode of The FLIGHT of the Heron, then in single episodes of Sutherland's Law and The New Avengers (1976) and ITV Playhouse (1977). He was then in an adaptation of The Eagle of the Ninth, and his first film was Sweeney 2 in the following year. In 1979 he began a nine-year stint as Detective Sergeant Albert "Cheerful Charlie" Chisholm in the popular TV series Minder.
His television appearances have included dramas such as The Singing Detective (1986) and Middlemarch (1994), and he played Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Roderick Alleyn in a 1993–94 series. His films include Comfort and Joy (1984), A Month in the Country (1987) and Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001). In 1999, he made a small appearance in the introduction to the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough as a Swiss banker named Lachaise working in Bilbao. He played Mr. Ryder in the 2008 film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, and from 2012 to 2016 portrayed Balon Greyjoy, the father of Theon Greyjoy, in the TV series Game of Thrones.
