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Bernard Hepton

Bernard Hepton

Acting

Biography

Bernard Hepton (born 19 October 1925 - 27th July, 2018) was a British actor of stage, film and television. Hepton was known as a particularly versatile character actor. He trained at Bradford Civic Theatre school under Esme Church along with actors such as Robert Stephens. He had extensive stage experience as an actor, under Sir Barry Jackson in addition to a spell as Artistic Director of Birmingham Rep and Liverpool Playhouse. On television, he played Toby Esterhase in the BBC Television adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, and George Smiley in the radio adaptations. He also played the Kommandant in Colditz (1972–74), and later appeared for the same production team as Albert Foiret in three seasons of Secret Army (1977–79). Before that he had made a guest appearance in an episode of the first series of Catweazle in 1970 where he played a naturalist. Other notable performances included Thomas Cranmer in both The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970) and Elizabeth R (1971). He played Sam Toovey in the 1989 television adaptation of Susan Hill's ghost story The Woman in Black. On radio Hepton played the role of Albert, in Stranger In The Home by Alan Dapre, also the role of The Old Man in the Corner, the Baroness Orczy amateur, and mostly sedentary, sleuth in the BBC dramatizations called The Teahouse Detective (1998–2000). His appearances in feature film were less frequent. He made a brief appearance as Thorpey, a gangster in the classic British film Get Carter (1971), and had another small role, as Milton Goldsmith, in Voyage of the Damned (1976). He was a fan of the Rugby League team Hunslet Hawks and also played stand-off for them in the 1952/53 season, winning a Yorkshire Cup Medal. Description above from the Wikipedia article Bernard Hepton, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

Midsomer Murders
7.5

The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.

Midsomer Murders

1997
Play for Today
6.6

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration.

Play for Today

1970
Z-Cars
7.3

Z-Cars or Z Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby, Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.

Z-Cars

1962
BBC Play of the Month
5.3

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

1965
The Wednesday Play
5.2

An anthology series of television plays which aired on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. The plays were usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured.

The Wednesday Play

1964
Bergerac
6.7

Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.

Bergerac

1981
ITV Playhouse
7.0

ITV Playhouse is a British comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a format that would inspire Dramarama. Actors appearing in the series included Leslie Anderson, Gwen Nelson, Ricky Alleyne, Pat Heywood, Michael Elphick, Ian Hendry, Edward Woodward, Margaret Lockwood, Jessie Matthews and Lloyd Peters.

ITV Playhouse

1967
Screen Two
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985
Theatre 625
7.2

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

1964
Secret Army
7.7

World War II drama about covert organisation Lifeline helping allied airmen escape after being shot down in occupied Europe, working with the Resistance and hiding from the Gestapo.

Secret Army

1977
ITV Saturday Night Theatre
7.0

Anthology series of dramatic works.

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

1969
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
7.5

An anthology series produced by Thames Television, comprised of short mystery, suspense or crime adaptations featuring, as the title suggests, detectives who were literary contemporaries of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.

The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

1971
Catweazle
7.6

A medieval wizard (though not a very good one) Catweazle is transported to the modern age... A British television series, created and written by Richard Carpenter which was produced and directed by Quentin Lawrence for London Weekend Television under the LWI banner, and screened in the UK on ITV in 1970. A second season in 1971 was directed by David Reid and David Lane. Both series had thirteen episodes each, with Geoffrey Bayldon playing the leading role. The series was broadcast in Ireland, Britain, Gibraltar, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Czechoslovakia, Nicaragua and Quebec. The first episode is available to view in full at the BFI Screenonline site.

Catweazle

1970
Out of the Unknown
7.1

Out of the Unknown is a British television science fiction anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC2 in four series between 1965 and 1971. Each episode was a dramatisation of a science fiction short story; some were created for the series, but most were adaptations of already published stories. The first three years were exclusively science fiction, but that genre was abandoned in the final year in favour of horror and fantasy. A number of episodes were wiped during the early 1970s, as was standard procedure at the time.

Out of the Unknown

1965
Doomwatch
6.4

Doomwatch is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC, which ran on BBC 1 between 1970 and 1972. The series was set in the then present-day, and dealt with a scientific government agency led by Doctor Spencer Quist, responsible for investigating and combating various ecological and technological dangers. The series was followed by a film adaptation produced by Tigon British Film Productions and released in 1972, and a revival TV film was broadcast on Channel 5 in 1999.

Doomwatch

1970
I, Claudius
7.9

Acclaimed blackly comic historical drama series. Set amidst a web of power, corruption and lies, it chronicles the reigns of the Roman emperors - Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and finally Claudius.

I, Claudius

1976
Churchill's People
5.0

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

1974
The Troubleshooters
7.3

The Troubleshooters is a British television series made by the BBC between 1965 and 1972, created by John Elliot. During its run, the series made the transition from black and white to colour transmissions. The series was based around an international oil company – the "Mogul" of the title. The first series was mostly concerned with the internal politics within the Mogul organisation, with episodes revolving around industrial espionage, internal fraud and negligence almost leading to an accident on a North Sea oil rig.

The Troubleshooters

1965
The Main Chance
8.3

The Main Chance was a British television series which first aired on ITV between 1969,1970,1972 and 1975. A drama, it depicts the sudden transformation in the life of solicitor David Main who relocates from London to Leeds.

The Main Chance

1969
Detective
9.0

A BBC anthology series featuring adaptations of detective stories over 45 episodes in three seasons that ran from 1964 to 1969. As with many BBC programmes made before the early 1970s, many of its episodes no longer exist. Of the eighteen episodes from the first season only twelve are currently known to exist; likewise six of the sixteen editions from the second run are considered lost, and just one of the final ten survives in the archives.

Detective

1964