KEITH BARRON

(8 August 1934 - 15 November 2017)

Although he spent most of his working life on television, the Yorkshire-born actor Keith Barron, who has died aged 83 following a short illness, also appeared in several films. He began acting in repertory at Sheffield and later at the Bristol Old Vic. His TV career began in 1961 with A Chance of Thunder. However, it was probably the BBC’s Wednesday Play series in 1965 that brought Barron recognition as he starred in two Dennis Potter political plays, namely Stand Up, Nigel Barton and its sequel Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton. Then there was no stopping him as he appeared in many more TV series such as Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Jackanory, A Family at War, The Edwardians (as Baden-Powell), Upstairs, Downstairs and very many more. Having excelled in both drama and comedy he was at home in Crown Court, Telford’s Change, Prince Regent (as Charles James Fox), Doctor Who and Leaving, etc. His most successful series was the sitcom Duty Free (1984-86, for 22 episodes), with Gwen Taylor, and with scripts by Eric (Rising Damp) Chappell and Jean Warr. For the cinema Barron’s debut was in Baby Love (1968), then he was in The Man Who Had Power Over Women with Rod Taylor. The Firechasers, She’ll Follow You Anywhere, Freelance and Nothing But the Night came along between TV work. The Land That Time Forgot and At the Earth’s Core were a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations, while Voyage of the Damned, with Faye Dunaway, was about the flight of German Jews from Nazi Germany. Barron played Henry VIII in God’s Outlaw, appeared with Shirley Bassey in La passione, and made his last feature film, In Love With Alma Cogan, in 2011. Keith Barron was married to the stage designer Mary Pickard and they had a son, Jamie. For three years in the 1980s the family ran Fox’s, a restaurant in Cornwall, with Mary cooking, Jamie waiting, and Keith acting as host.

MICHAEL DARVELL