Matthew Perry 1969-2023 Metrosexual, ironic actor who captured the spirit of an age

'Chandler Bing," wrote 'C Matthew Perry in his puckish, self mocking memoir, "changed the way that America spoke." The actor's bold words were true - but only up to a point and only for a while.

- Zoe Willams

Yes, there was a period in the late 1990s when people overemphasised the verb to comic effect: "Could that be any more annoying?" But that was really more of a verbal tic.

The Matthew Perry/Chandler Bing paradox was that he demanded not to be taken seriously, and in doing so became the ego ideal of generation X, which is a pretty serious job. So even though he had - no question - the best lines in Friends, he was never what he would have been in an earlier era: the sidekick.

So much of the plot structure rested on Chandler being the second string: the maladroit loser to Joey's lothario, the joker skating beneath Ross's romantic gravity. He was never intended as the leading man. He and Monica were never story-arced to get married. The One With Ross's Wedding: Part 2 was meant to just be a one-night stand.

The Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman said years later: "We thought it was going to be funny, then we were going to get rid of it." In the event, they actually had to stop taping because people in the delighted audience were screaming.

Of course Chandler was the romantic lead. His was the spirit of the age: self-deprecating, metro sexual, all ironic distance, no ambition.

It had a gravitational pull. It's the classic stuff of romance, the Emma plot: the guy who creeps up on you because, dur, he's everything. Except Chandler did that to his own creators.

Incidentally, he's a way better character before he gets together with Monica. And he's a way better character when he hates his job. The unfolding of adulthood was like kicking two legs off a stool. Gen X is a shadow of itself when it grows up.