High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Victor Meldrew was a fictional character in the popular BBC One sitcom One Foot in the Grave. Created by David Renwick and played by Richard Wilson, the character was the archetypal grumpy old man. Meldrew is a foil for the bothersome aspects of children, cars, animals, power cuts or next-door neighbours (his particular example being Patrick Trench, played by Angus Deayton).