Bill Moores
Acting
Biography
Bill Moores was born on 16 October 1934 to George and Lillian Moore – but he became Moores after his father accidentally wrote an extra “S” on the birth certificate. He grew up in Old Swan and Huyton Quarry, and lived in Prescot until his death on Monday 13 April 2015 at the age of 80. He began his acting career in local am-dram, performing with the Rainhill Garrick Society and the Rainhill Amateur Operatic Society. On TV, he was best-known for a long stint as Cedric – perpetually drunk and always propping up the bar – in the Liverpool-set sitcom Watching (1987-1993). He also starred in Our Day Out (1977), The Spongers (1978), The Muscle Market (1981), Boys from the Blackstuff (1982), No Surrender (1987) and Riff-Raff (1991). Alongside his TV and theatre work, he was head of the Liverpool division of actors’ union Equity for several years. He was also a familiar face behind the counter at HLS Motor Factors on Warrington Road, Prescot, and KLS on Hall Lane. In his later years he toured retirement homes with an acting company.
Known For
A young couple from Merseyside and their off again/on again relationship.
Watching
Alan Bleasdale's five-part series relates the further experiences of unemployed Liverpudlian tarmac layers Dixie, Chrissie, Loggo and Yosser, and their revered older friend, retired longshoreman and union leader, George Malone. As they struggle to make ends meet in a depressed economy, and to hold together their financially battered families, they are harrassed by the petty bureaucrats of the DHSS. But the lumbering investigational juggernaut is, both comically and tragically, guided by drivers with only a provisional license.
Boys from the Blackstuff
Stevie, fresh from prison in Scotland, finds a job on a London construction site. The working conditions are poor and most of the men are working under aliases, due to immigration status and to not conflict with their "signing on" for unemployment benefits. Some coworkers help Stevie secure housing, squatting in a council estate. Then Stevie meets Susan, from Ireland, who's struggling to be a professional singer.
Riff-Raff
Siblings Maisie and Tony, along with their mother, gather for their sister Eileen's wedding. It is a joyous occasion, but through flashbacks, it becomes clear that the family was not always happy. Their father was physically abusive to his wife and left the children emotionally traumatized. As a result, the children have grown into unhappy adults, looking for love they didn't receive when they were young.
Distant Voices, Still Lives
It's New Year's Eve in Thatcher's de-industrialising Britain. The scene is set at a seedy bar in Liverpool where a group of Irish Protestant and Irish Catholic pensioners will gather to clash and bash the new year in.
No Surrender
When a teacher takes a group of troubled school children on a school trip to Conwy in Wales, the children understand life outside of Liverpool.
Our Day Out
Based on a true story. In 1940, Britain's gold reserves were transferred for safety to Liverpool because of the threat of a German invasion. The top-secret operation was known only to a handful of security men and senior bank officials... and a group of Liverpool dockers who handle the move. Billy Mac, the dockers' leader, hatches an ingenious plan to steal some of the gold bars from under the noses of the guards.
The Bullion Boys
Danny Duggan runs a failing building contractors, and resorts to sub-gangster thuggery to keep the business afloat. However, with the bottom falling out of the building game, Duggan finds that playing at gangster is only fun when you're on the winning side.
The Muscle Market
In the days leading up the Queen's Silver Jubilee, Pauline, a recently separated single mother, receives a visit from a bailiff and is given 15 days to address her overdue rent payments. Meanwhile, the local council is under pressure to cut expenditure, and their decisions result in Pauline's mentally handicapped daughter Paula being transferred from a care home for special needs children to an old people's home, where she is all alone.