253 stories by "Richard Anthony Baker"
There have been many tributes to the comedian, writer and director, Mel Smith, who has died at the age of 60. Rowan Atkinson, who worked with him on the television sketch show, Not the Nine.…
As a highly respected dance teacher, Judith Silvester trained thousands of pupils during a career that lasted 50 years. Although she was based at the Constance Grant Dance Centre in Sheffiel…
In the long-running Scottish sitcom Rab C Nesbitt, the less than intelligent Doddie, who got his kicks from sniffing shoe polish, was played by Iain McColl, who stumbled into acting almost b…
A versatile pianist, James Gibb took part in the D-Day expedition to France, part of the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. On his way across the Channel, he sang all the main themes from.…
Pop music merged with the excitement of the space age to produce Telstar (1962), recorded by the Tornados, which was the first British group to top the US charts and whose keyboard player wa…
While bringing up four children on her own, Olwen Wymark wrote innumerable adaptations for the drama department of BBC Radio. Once the children were older, she branched out into writing play…
By coincidence, the actress Katherine Woodville had the good fortune to be associated with two cult television shows. In Britain, she appeared in the first episode of the spy send-up The Ave…
As director of music at Trinity College, Cambridge, for nearly 40 years, Richard Marlow was a pioneer in the introduction of women's voices into sacred music. While a choirboy at Southwark C…
The virtual creator of the modern rock concert, Mark Fisher produced spectacular stage sets for some of Britain's leading groups, including the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and U2. Once bands …
Having started her career in rep, Doreen Hawkins, who was born Doreen Beadle, toured the battle zones of Africa, India and Burma as a member of the Entertainments National Service Associatio…
The world of classical music in Britain was considerably enhanced by Hugh Maguire, the Irish violinist who led the London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and took a deep in…
As the youngest male principal in the history of the Royal Ballet, David Wall was outstanding in classical, romantic and humorous roles. But he will be best remembered for creating the part …
When Bob Monkhouse was presenting the ITV game show The Golden Shot (1967-75), his warm-up man was Dave Ismay, who detected what he saw as a stark contrast in their styles. Monkhouse was as …
A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for 20 years, David Lyon was also a familiar face on television, most notably as a post-Thatcher, Conservative prime minister in the political thril…
As one of the small group of newsreaders and announcers on BBC Radio 4, Rory Morrison helped to give the station its highly distinctive sound. Many people listening at home to live news broa…
A dancer and chorus singer in a plethora of shows, Roma King was able to claim: "There isn't a single stage in Britain I haven't performed on." Born into a showbusiness family, she was named…
After starting out as a dance band singer, Terry Devon went on to be heard by millions of radio listeners as one of the Keynotes, the group that accompanied the Frank Muir and Dennis Norden-…
The longest-serving actor in the ITV soap Emmerdale, Richard Thorp played Alan Turner, a character who started out as something of a hate figure. But over the 31 years he was associated with…
A trained dancer, Michael Hogan diversified widely by appearing in musicals and the cinema. It was while he was studying at the Royal Academy of Dance that he caught the eye of one of the...
As the officious air raid warden in the Second World War television sitcom Dad's Army (1968-75), Bill Pertwee did not have much to say or do. But he was crucial to the clever mix of...
In spite of losing an arm as a result of cancer at the age of 32, John Railton was one of the leading choral conductors of his generation. At the Royal Academy of Music, he...
For more than 30 years, Michael Gough Matthews devoted his life to the Royal College of Music, becoming its director in 1984. He fought hard to maintain its independence in Britain and its h…
At the forefront of recording all kinds of music for EMI, Hazel Yarwood witnessed enormous technological changes during the course of a career that lasted for nearly 40 years. When she began…
The composer of an extraordinarily wide range of music, Stephen Dodgson was particularly associated with his work for the guitar. Although at the outset he had only a rudimentary understandi…
In BBC Radio's everyday tale of country folk, The Archers, three of those folk were played by the same actor, Arnold Peters, although most of its followers associated him only with the ebull…
