Susie Blake

Susie Blake:

Pert and pretty actress, hilarious as the confidingly bitchy continuity announcer from 'Victoria Wood: As Seen On TV' in the '80s and later memorable as the boozy barmaid Bev in 'Coronation Street' who would have married Fred Elliott - had he not dramatically died in epic soap opera style on the morning of their wedding.

Susie Blake's mother Molly presented the popular 
BBC children's programme 'Muffin The Mule'

A member of the illustrious Mills dynasty of actors (she's the great niece of Sir John and cousin to Hayley and Juliet), Susie Blake trained at LAMDA and began appearing on television during the mid-'70s. Her charm and vivacity might have seen her cast in a number of typically lightweight young female roles of the era, but clearly her stage-honed acting ability and knack for comedy started to show itself quite early in her career.     

In her first TV role, a 1974 episode of 'Zodiac' 

As a music hall singer in the Victorian detective series, 'Cribb'

By the '80s, she could be seen in the sitcom 'Born & Bred' and was a regular in 'Russ Abbott's Saturday Madhouse', but it was 1985's 'Victoria Wood: As Seen On TV' that cemented her place in the public eye. Less famously, she also provided voices for Victor Lewis Smith's hit-and-miss 'Adventures of Ferdinand De Bargos' and was given centre stage in her own sketch comedy vehicle, 'Something For The Weekend' in 1989. 

With Russ Abbott in his popular Saturday
evening variety/sketch show in the '80s 

We also see Susie Blake pop up briefly in hit shows of the '90s such as 'One Foot In The Grave', The Darling Buds Of May', and the wine-bar, Laura Ashley frock-era comedy 'Singles', before we hit the 'Coronation Street' years. She played Bev Unwin from 2003 until 2015, quite an epic stint, even for that great national institution. Keeping her hand in on the theatre stage, she also found time to appear in a number of large productions at the National Theatre and Lyric in everything from Ibsen and Shakespeare to 'South Pacific' and Joe Penhall's 'Blue/Orange'. 
  

Slightly miffed at having John Cleese lick her
injured leg in 'Fierce Creatures' (1997) 

Trouble at the Rovers Return, as Bev Unwin
in 'Coronation Street' 

There aren't many cinema productions in which she can be spotted, but they include 'Fierce Creatures' (1997), and 'Nativity 3' (2014). It's more likely you will see her these days in the unfathomably popular 'Mrs Brown's Boys' in which she plays Hilary. I wonder how Victoria Wood would have her snooty announcer character describe that particular programme? We shall never know.     

Susie Blake - imdb 

Alan Dobie

Alan Dobie:

Alan Dobie seems a rather dour, astringent sort of actor, but perhaps that's because I find it a little difficult to separate him from the character of Inspector Cribb, as seen in the '80s Victorian detective series of that name. His career on the big screen has been one interesting oddities, with early roles including 'Captured' (1959), originally an army training film about resisting interrogation that has come to be seen as a classic POW drama, and the Brit-noir 'Seven Keys' (1961) in which he plays an ex-con unravelling a mystery while seeking hidden loot.    

In 'Captured' (1959), a military training film that remained
unseen by the general public until 2004

He also appears in the popular Disney adventure serial, later released as a feature film, 'Dr Syn, Alias The Scarecrow' (1963) opposite Patrick McGoohan as the eponymous smuggler, and he's in the curiously seedy Kenneth More drama, 'The Comedy Man' (1964).

In the Walt Disney adventure serial 'Dr Syn' (1963)

For much of the '60s and '70s, he became a stalwart of the television play, appearing in various strands such as 'The Wednesday Play', 'BBC Sunday-Night Play', 'Theatre 625', and 'Play For Today'. He also in some heavy drama serials like 'Resurrection',  'The Plane Makers', 'War and Peace' and 'Hard Times', before getting the starring role in 'Cribb', itself a spin-off from an original play. Other highlights of the '80s include the post-'Secret Army' series 'Kessler', the highbrow, but rather fleshy, drama-documentary about the life of Ingres, 'Artists and Models', and the tour-de-force portrayal of Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman in the medieval religious debate of 'The Disputation'.           

As Prince Bolkonsky in the 1972 BBC epic 'War and Peace' 

As befits such an accomplished actor, he's more often been seen on the stage and is a regular of the Peter Hall Company at the Old Vic Theatre in London and the Theatre Royal, Bath.

Alan Dobie - imdb

Peter Bland

Peter Bland:

An unassuming name for an accomplished actor who has managed to become a highly recognisable TV fixture without ever achieving widespread fame. With his fleshy, expressive face and hefty build, he has appeared in a wide variety of roles from foreign potentates and hearty policemen to dishevelled drunks and sleek confidence tricksters. He was born in Yorkshire, but emigrated to New Zealand in the '50s. In addition to acting, he is a well known poet and playwright in his adopted homeland, founding the Downstage Theatre Company in Wellington before heading back to London at the end of the '60s.       

There have been a few movie roles; starting with saucy '70s British comedies 'A Touch of The Other' (1970) and 'Don't Just Lie There, Say Something!' (1973), and more recently as a major player in some New Zealand-produced films, such as 'Came A Hot Friday (1985), 'Dangerous Orphans' (1985), 'Queen City Rocker', and 'Savage Play' (1995).

In the popular New Zealand movie 'Came A Hot Friday' (1985)

The '70s was a busy time for him, having joined the Bristol Old Vic, meeting farceur Brian Rix and finding his feet in television comedy and drama. He appeared in Rix's political sitcom series 'Men of Affairs', and in 'Dave Allen at Large', as well as the groundbreaking black family comedy 'The Fosters' and the BBC adaptation of 'The Old Curiosity Shop' which starred Trevor Peacock as Mr Quilp.   
   

As Charlie the shotgun-toting Greek-Cypriot in 'Minder'

The '80s extended his repertoire, with roles in 'Minder', Victorian police procedural 'Cribb', and light comedy in the regular casts of 'Kelly Monteith' and 'Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV'. He was also the guv'nor in the Steve Frost and Mark Arden (you remember, 'I bet he drinks Carling Black Label…') cop spoof 'Lazarus & Dingwall'.  

As the music hall proprietor Samuel Plunkett in 'Cribb'

To find out more about Peter Bland's poetry, click here.

Peter Bland-imdb

Gerald Sim

Gerald Sim:

† Jun 4 1925 – Dec 11 2014

Delighted to find that this distinguished gent is still around, having made his film debut in 1947's 'Fame Is The Spur'. Sixty years is a long time, so it's likely that you'll have seen his knitted brows in 'The Wrong Box', 'Ryan's Daughter', 'Dr Jeckyll & Sister Hyde', 'Oh What A Lovely War!', 'Dr Phibes Rises Again' or 'A Bridge Too Far' on the big screen. 

His TV career stretches from 'Man In A Suitcase' and 'The Avengers' to 'Cribb', 'Ripping Yarns', 'The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin' and the unavoidable 'Bergerac'. A full house.

Gerald Sim - imdb profile

James Warrior

James Warrior: 

The perennial worried Welshman in a brown suit, his first roles included harrassed coppers in 'Budgie' and 'The Sweeney', but he has played town councillors, reporters, landlords, con-men, miners and cab drivers with some of the quirky elan of Gorden Kaye, if not quite Roy Kinnear. 

In the BBC play 'The Comedians'

As Mr Babbacombe in 'The Fall And
Rise Of Reginald Perrin'

I liked him as Mr Meredith ("it's Me-RED-ith") in the unlamented comedy 'Glamour Girls'. After a few years brewing real ale in Cornwall, he's more recently been focusing on voiceover acting work.

The slightly uncouth DC Jellyneck in 'The Sweeney' 

As James Berry the hangman in 'Cribb'

James Warrior - imdb profile