Duggie Brown

Duggie Brown:

† Aug 7 1940 – Aug 16 2022

A popular turn on the club circuit in the late '60s and early '70s, chubby-faced comic Duggie Brown made an unusual transition to cinema and TV in serious and comedy roles after his brief appearance in Ken Loach's 'Kes'. He went on to feature in some of the typically gritty TV plays of the early '70s including 'Another Sunday and Sweet FA', 'Rank and File', Play for Today 'The Price of Coal', and 'The Hard Word'. All the while, he was also appearing on Granada Television's 'The Comedians' performing the presumably less blue parts of his club act for teatime TV audiences.

He had the title role in kitchen-sink doyenne Shelagh Delaney's six-part BBC series 'The House That Jack Built', which appears to be a victim of the corporation's disastrous tape-wiping stinginess. Shame if it hasn't survived, sounds like something of a lost gem.    

In the 1977 Play for Today, 'The Price of Coal'

I first recall him in the rather downbeat modelling-agency sitcom, 'The Glamour Girls', written by Reggie Perrin creator David Nobbs. It also featured our old friend James Warrior, not to mention Brigit Forsyth as a slightly neurotic model constantly at odds with her bubbly blonde colleague played by Sally Watts.  

In a recent TV interview.

Less chubby of face these days, he has also had parts in  'The Bill', 'All Creatures Great and Small', 'Minder', 'Ellington' 'Heartbeat', 'Common as Muck' and is one of the few actors to have appeared in 'Coronation Street', 'Brookside' and 'EastEnders'.

Trivia: He helmed the ITV Saturday morning kids' show 'The Mersey Pirate' - a desolate relation of Tiswas -  filmed on board a cold and draughty boat on Liverpool Docks.

More trivia: His sister, the late Lynne Perrie, was famous as Ivy Tilsley on 'Coronation Street'. The family resemblance is quite marked.   

Duggie Brown-imdb

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