Raymond Mason
Acting
Biography
During Raymond Mason’s 20 years of acting in the ITV soap opera Crossroads, he played five different roles. “I don’t think anyone ever noticed,” he said, “and I don’t put it down to versatility.” For trained actors in the days when there was just a handful of drama colleges and fewer vocational courses, the pool of talent was by definition smaller. Many performers found themselves appearing more than once in the same programmes. For Raymond, the roles that he played on British television over 40-odd years numbered more than 1,000, and he appeared in scores of commercials at home and overseas. One of the reasons for Raymond’s success was that he was comfortable in a supporting role and, crucially, adept at not stealing a scene. Through a combination of timing and practised self-effacement he allowed the main star, or joke, to shine. Modest about taking the credit, he effectively enabled the skit. In the late 1960s and 1970s, when comedy was spread across just three TV channels, Raymond appeared in Saturday-night programmes including The Morecambe & Wise Show — he described the double act as “a joy”, The Two Ronnies and alongside Frankie Howerd, Les Dawson and the like. In a 1979 episode of Fawlty Towers called The Kipper and the Corpse, his character attempts to retrieve his hat while Basil is trying to hide the body of a deceased guest. John Cleese later described him as “one of my favourite actors”. The middle child between an older and a younger sister, Raymond was born in 1924 in Great Bridge, Staffordshire, and brought up in Tettenhall near Wolverhampton. His exposure to light entertainment started at an early age as his father, George, who had fought in the First World War, played the piano and organ, wrote his own compositions and was a local bandleader. After shutting up the fish and chip shop in Wolverhampton that he owned with his wife, Elizabeth, George would stuff a keyboard glockenspiel into his bike’s front carrier and set off
Known For
Crown Court is an afternoon television courtroom drama produced by Granada Television for the ITV network that ran from 1972, when the Crown Court system replaced Assize courts and Quarter sessions in the legal system of England and Wales, to 1984.
Crown Court
A BBC television anthology series featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted from October 1965 to September 1983.
BBC Play of the Month
Wycliffe is a British television series, based on W. J. Burley's novels about Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe. It was produced by HTV and broadcast on the ITV Network, following a pilot episode on 7 August 1993, between 24 July 1994 and 5 July 1998. The series was filmed in Cornwall, with a production office in Truro. Music for the series was composed by Nigel Hess and was awarded the Royal Television Society award for the best television theme. Wycliffe is played by Jack Shepherd, assisted by DI Doug Kersey and DI Lucy Lane. Each episode deals with a murder investigation. In the early series, the stories are adapted from Burley's books and are in classic whodunit style, often with quirky characters and plot elements. In later seasons, the tone becomes more naturalistic and there is more emphasis on internal politics within the police.
Wycliffe
Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line format, which only BBC2 used at the time.
Theatre 625
The Chief is a British crime drama transmitted on ITV from 20 April 1990 to 16 June 1995. Produced by Anglia Television, it centred on the politics at the top of a typical English police force in its continual battle to solve the problems the times, in this case the fictional Eastland of East Anglia.
The Chief
Owner Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil, a chambermaid Polly, and Spanish waiter Manuel attempt to run their hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding guests.
Fawlty Towers
Churchill's People is a British anthology series based on A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill's four-volume history of Britain and its former colonies. 26 episodes were produced by the BBC and initially broadcast from 30 December 1974 to 23 June 1975.
Churchill's People
Terry and June Medford are both middle aged and beginning to find the trials of life are more difficult as they try to succeed in their daily lives. The couple have just moved to Purley, south-east London... Aunt Lucy and the mynah bird had disappeared, as had the occasionally visiting daughters. Terry and June now mixed with a friendly next door neighbour, Beattie; Terry's chatty work colleague, Malcolm; and their gruff boss Sir Dennis Hodge. Otherwise, things were much as before, with Terry's pigheaded childishness causing no end of problems, usually thwarting June's attempts at leading a cosy life.
Terry and June
Mystery and Imagination is a British television anthology of classic horror and supernatural dramas. Five series were broadcast from 1966 to 1970 on ITV and produced by ABC and Thames Television.
Mystery and Imagination
An idyllic picture of 1950's rural England as seen through the lives of the Larkins, a farm family living in Kent. The show revolves around Pa Larkin, a man of a kind and mischievous nature with a penchant for getting into scrapes and talking his way out of them with equal equanimity; and his daughters, as they deal with growing up and discovering the joys and sorrows of young love.
The Darling Buds of May
Anthology series of half hour plays produced in BBC's Television Centre's studios.
Centre Play
Enemy At The Door is a British television drama series made by London Weekend Television for ITV. The series was shown between 1978 and 1980 and dealt with the German occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, during the Second World War. The programme generated a certain amount of criticism in Guernsey, particularly for being obviously filmed on Jersey despite being ostensibly set on Guernsey. The series also marked the TV debut of Anthony Head as a member of the island resistance. The theme music was by Wilfred Josephs.
Enemy at the Door
Budgie is a popular British television series starring former popstar Adam Faith which was produced by ITV company London Weekend Television and broadcast on the ITV network between 1971 and 1972. The series was created by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall . The show was produced by Verity Lambert, Rex Firkin was the Executive producer.
Budgie
The Afternoon Play is a British television anthology series of standalone contemporary dramas aired during the afternoons of 2003–07 on BBC One, featuring well-known actors in one-off stories. A daytime drama strand showcasing a variety of genres, from comedy to mystery, it was part of a long tradition of afternoon plays on BBC Radio 4, which would go on to influence the television version.
The Afternoon Play
Frustrated at a new moderate Conservative government and deprived of a promotion to a senior position, chief whip Francis Urquhart prepares a meticulous plot to bring down the Prime Minister then to take his place.
House of Cards
Tom and Barbara Good escape the rat race and pursue a self-sufficient lifestyle in Surbiton, much to the concern, frustration and sometimes envy of their neighbours Margo and Jerry Leadbetter. Entitled ‘Good Neighbors’ when shown in the USA.
The Good Life
Hunters Walk – devised by Dixon of Dock Green creator Ted Willis – was about crime on a smaller – but no less dramatic – scale, and featured a police force in the fictional Midlands town of Broadstone (the series was actually filmed in Rushden, Northants). Sharing several similarities with the classic 1950s police drama, in particular a small-town settingband storylines encompassing the more human aspects of police work, Hunters Walk offered a contrasting alternative to the 1970s more hard-hitting, action-led urban crime dramas. The small, idiosyncratic team of officers faced a typically broad spectrum of cases, from neighbours’ disputes and hooliganism to suspected murder.
Hunters Walk
Dark Ages wizard Merlin, weary of the barbarism around him, creates a new order of enlightenment and justice with a youthful Arthur at its head. Merlin gifts Arthur with the magic legendary sword Excalibur to help him defeat the nobles who oppose his rule. But Arthur must also beware his half-sister Morgan, a sorceress who has sworn to kill him to avenge her father's death. As Morgan intensifies her plans for revenge, she uses magic to draw Lancelot and Guinevere into a passionate affair. However, it is the still more traitorous Mordred who will ultimately determine the fate of Arthur's rule.
The Legend of King Arthur
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's non-Sherlock Holmes stories embodying the author's interest in boxing, the supernatural, and medical matters.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Singer, actress, dancer, comedienne: these are just some of the words the popular American comic can spell. Rita Rudner's first British series features stand-up comedy, sketches and songs.