Last of the Summer Wine main cast

Peter started off as a junior bank clerk but he had always been interested in the theatre and went every week to the Intimate Theatre in Palmers Green in London which was run by actor John Clements. Serving in the RAF as a radio instructor one of his pupils was Peter Bridge (now a theatre impresario) who later asked him to play David Bliss in his production of 'Hay Fever', He enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to make the theatre his profession.

Although Jane Freeman will forever be associated with the redoubtable cafe owner Ivy in Roy Clarke's long-running Last of the Summer Wine - appearing in 274 episodes over a 37-year run and a 1983 stage version - she was also an actor of considerable resources who remained steadfastly committed to the theatre.

If Clarke's BBC hit comedy overshadowed Freeman's later career, she was at pains not to be confined by it, appearing in regional rep, national tours and pantomimes throughout its long television life.

Born in Brentford, near London, she moved to Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, when her mother remarried, her father having died in an accident when she was nine. There she developed an early interest in performing at school. After graduating from the City of Cardiff [now Royal Welsh] College of Music and Drama in 1955, she moved to London before joining the Gloucestershire-based all-female Osiris Repertory Theatre touring company.

In 1958 she joined the Arena Theatre, Sutton Coldfield, where she began to attract attention, and was seen as Margaret More in the inaugural production of the Welsh Theatre Company, Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons, at the New Theatre, Cardiff in 1962.

As a member of Birmingham Rep between 1968 and 1973, she toured to Chicago and made notable appearances in Edward Bond's Saved and the musical Guys and Dolls, and as Maggie Hobson in Harold Brighouse's Hobson's Choice.

When television filming commitments allowed, she could be found playing a number of strong, usually northern, matriarchs in Billy Liar (Nottingham Playhouse, 1980), touring productions of JB Priestley's When We Are Married and Michael Frayn's Noises Off (1987) and Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke's Situation Comedy (1989).

She scored a personal success as the sharp-tongued Emma Hornett in Philip King and Falkland Carey's Sailor Beware! at the Lyric, Hammersmith (1991), subsequently touring with it in 1992 and 1993.

Later theatre appearances included Pam Gems' Deborah's Daughter (Library Theatre, Manchester, 1994) and tours of William Ash's adaptation of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights in 1995 and again in 1998.

She made her television debut in Troy Kennedy-Martin and John McGrath's Marriage, directed by Ken Loach, in 1964. Her Play for Today appearances included Peter Terson's The Fishing Party (1972) and Alan Bleasdale's Scully's New Year's Eve (1978). Other notable credits included Roy Clarke's Of Funerals and Fish (1973), Blackadder (1982) and Mrs Kimble in Silas Marner (1985).

Her few film appearances included Scrubbers (1982), directed by Mai Zetterling.

She was married to Michael Simpson, the former artistic director of Birmingham Rep, from 1971 until his death in December 2007.

Jane Freeman died of lung cancer on March 9, 2017, aged 81.

Kathy Staff was born on 12 July 1928 in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Mary Reilly (1996), Last of the Summer Wine (1973) and Open All Hours (1976). She was married to John Staff. She died on 13 December 2008 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England, UK.

Robert Fyfe was born on 25 September 1930 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for Cloud Atlas (2012), Around the World in 80 Days (2004) and Formula 51 (2001). He was married to Diana Rush. He died on 15 September 2021.

Juliette Kaplan was born on 2 October 1939 in Bournemouth, Dorset, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Last of the Summer Wine (1973), Don't Let Go (2013) and Coronation Street (1960). She was married to Harold Hoser. She died on 10 October 2019 in Kent, England, UK.

Jean Fergusson was born on 30 December 1944 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Last of the Summer Wine (1973), Coronation Street (1960) and Run for Your Wife (2012). She died on 14 November 2019.

Sarah Thomas was born on 5 June 1952 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Last of the Summer Wine (1973), Madagascar Skin (1995) and Special Branch (1969).

This English actor was born of humble, working class beginnings and became well-known for playing the same kind of blokes on both film and TV. Born William Rowbotham, he was the son of a tram driver and laundress. He knew early on that entertaining was the life for him. He worked in odd jobs as a printer's apprentice and band vocalist to make do and, when he became of legal age, started playing drums in London nightclubs and toured music halls with his own cabaret act to pay for acting classes. He entertained at Butlin's holiday camps and performed in repertory, joining the Unity Theatre where he attained respect as a stage producer. His career was interrupted by military service with the Royal Army Ordinance Corps and was injured in an explosion during battle training course.

Returning to acting, he was taken to post-war films after notice in a play. He started making a blue-collar character name for himself in such films as Johnny in the Clouds (1945), Secret Flight (1946), When the Bough Breaks (1947), Maniacs on Wheels (1949), The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), The Square Ring (1953) and PT Raiders (1955). He continued to perform in the theatre limelight and peaked in roles with Katharine Hepburn in "As You Like It" in 1950, and with "The Threepenny Opera" and "The Mikado", which made sturdy use of his musical talents. A writer at heart, he penned songs, musicals and plays over the years. Partnered with Mike Sammes, he wrote songs recorded by Pat Boone, Harry Secombe, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Sir Cliff Richard, who made a hit of his 1980 song "Marianne". In the 60s, he produced the stage musical, "The Matchgirl", and focused heavily on film slapstick with the "Carry On" series, adding also to the lowbrow fun found in the comedy On the Fiddle (1961). TV stardom and a sense of renewed career came late after landing the role of "Compo" in the BBC's Last of the Summer Wine (1973) series in 1973, his scruffy, mischievous charm endearing audiences for decades.

Bill was awarded the MBE in 1976 for his steadfast work for the National Association of Boys Clubs and for his role as chairman of the Performing Arts Advising Panel. He was also awarded an honorary degree by Bradford University in 1998. For the rest of his life, Bill would be identified with the lovable scamp "Compo", complete with woolly hat and threadbare jacket.

Most fittingly, when he died of pancreatic cancer in 1999, he asked to be buried in the Yorkshire village of Holmfirth, where the TV series was filmed and the townspeople had taken him close to their hearts. Married twice, his actor/son Tom Owen joined the "Last of the Summer Wine" series in 2000.

Jean Margaret Hodgkinson, known by the stage name Jean Alexander, was a British television actress. She was best known to British television viewers as Hilda Ogden in the soap opera Coronation Street (1960), a role she played from 1964 until 1987, and also as Auntie Wainwright in the long-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine from 1988 to 2010. For her role in Coronation Street (1960), she won the 1985 Royal Television Society Award for Best Performance, and received a 1988 BAFTA TV Award nomination for Best Actress.

Alexander was born at 18 Rhiwlas Street Toxteth, Liverpool, in 1926, to Nell and Archie Hodgkinson; her father worked as an electrician and the family lived in a terraced house with no indoor lavatory. Alexander had an elder brother, Kenneth. She aspired to become an actress from an early age, and later said that she was inspired by variety acts she saw at the Pavilion theatre in her home city. She attended St Edmund's College for Girls in Princes Park, Toxteth and as a teenager, she joined an amateur theatre group and took elocution lessons.

Alexander spent five years as a library assistant in Liverpool before she began her acting career in 1949 at the Adelphi Guild Theatre in Macclesfield. She first appeared as Florrie in Sheppey by Somerset Maugham. She later worked in rep in Oldham, Stockport and York. Most of her parts were minor, and she also worked as a wardrobe mistress and stage manager. Her television debut is variously given as in the police series Z-Cars or in Deadline Midnight.

Alexander first appeared in Coronation Street in 1962 in a minor role as a landlady. Two years later, she returned to the programme as Hilda Ogden. She started playing the role on 8 July 1964, finally leaving on 25 December 1987. Ogden became highly popular with viewers and Alexander was often identified with her character.

The British League for Hilda Ogden was established in 1979 by Sir John Betjeman, Willis Hall, Russell Harty, Laurence Olivier and Michael Parkinson, among others. In 1984, hundreds of fans sent her condolence cards after the death of her on-screen husband Stan Ogden, played by Bernard Youens, who had died a few months before his character was killed off. In 1985 she received the Royal Television Society Award for her performance on Coronation Street. When she decided to leave the show in 1987, fans started "Save Hilda!" campaigns; however, many did not realise that she had made her own decision to depart. Her final scenes in the programme were aired on 25 December 1987, attracting nearly 27 million viewers, the highest number in the show's history.

In 2005 the UK TV Times poll voted her as the "Greatest Soap Opera Star of All Time".

Mike Grady was born on 6 February 1946 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) and Citizen Smith (1977).

In a career than spanned eight decades, Thora Hird was widely-regarded as one of Britain's finest character actresses. She made over 100 films as well as starring in a host of TV comedies and, as a straight actress, excelled in the works of playwright Alan Bennett. Even in her 90s, she was working almost daily.

Born in Morecambe, Lancashire, the daughter of the manager of the local Royalty Theatre, she was carried on to the stage in a melodrama at the age of eight weeks. When old enough, she joined the Royalty's theatre company, although she kept a day job as a cashier in a grocery store. "I spent 10 years working in that grocery store", she recalled, "and I've played nearly all the customers I used to serve - maids, landladies, cleaners, forthright parents. When I'm acting, I'll do some little thing I've remembered, so simple". At the theatre, she appeared in over 500 plays and, in 1941, the comedian George Formby, on a visit to the theatre, recommended her to Michael Balcon at Ealing Film Studios. Put under contract, she first appeared in Black Sheep of Whitehall (1942) with Will Hay and a string of comedy films and dramas followed. In the same vein as the saucy seaside postcards of her Morecambe birth, Hird was usually cast as the all-seeing boarding house landlady, a gossiping neighbour or a sharp tongued mother-in-law.

In the 1950s, Hird was under contract to the Rank Organisation and was established as a major character actress. She worked with some of Britain's finest directors, including Herbert Wilcox, Lewis Gilbert and John Schlesinger but, by her own account, was not easily awed. "I've appeared in hundreds of films and television things and, in some cases, I literally mean 'appeared' around the door, that was all. Like anybody earning a living, I took most of the work that came along". She gave outstanding performances in Simon and Laura (1955) and The Entertainer (1960), opposite Laurence Olivier, but one of her best- remembered roles was that of the monstrous TV-addicted mother in A Kind of Loving (1962).

As her career progressed, she frequently returned to the stage, often in comedies, with comedians such as Arthur Askey and Harry Secombe, and, in 1964, she was memorably team with the comedian Freddie Frinton in the TV series, Meet the Wife (1963). She starred in a succession of hit TV comedies throughout the 70s and 80s but proof of her talent as a straight actress came in 1987, when she starred in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologue, A Creamcracker under the Settee for which she won a BAFTA award. She wrote several volumes of autobiography, including "Scene and Hird" and "Not in the Diary" and, in 1995, was the subject of a South Bank Show (ITV) monograph. One of the show's contributors, the actor Alan Bates, said of her, "Thora always had a grasp of her character immediately. She didn't have to work herself into a state to get it right. She is a naturally funny woman whose comedy is on the edge of tragedy. It's instinctive and very understanding of life itself".

Gordon Wharmby was born on 6 November 1933 in Salford, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Poirot (1989), Last of the Summer Wine (1973) and The Practice (1985). He was married to Muriel. He died on 18 May 2002 in Abergele, Clwyd, Wales, UK.

He was the third child of William Ernest Ball, a bank manager and Rosina whose other children were Marjorie, who died in 1980 and John, Thornton was his mother's maiden name and his middle name, He played the cello in his school's orchestra and was a corporal in the Officer's Training Corps which he left in1937 and became a clerk with the Guardian Insurance Company in London leaving to follow a colleague who'd left to be an actor and Frank thought he'd do the same and enrolled in the London School of Dramatic Art evening classes. In 1939 the school evacuated to Whitney in Oxfordshire. He went with them and still a student acted in the local repertory company which contained Peter Jones, In '1941 he was in the West End with Donald Wolfit and after that a year in The Scarlet #Pimpernel at Manchester Opera House where he met actress Beryl Evans, September '43 he was in the RAF and sent to Nova Scotia to train as a navigator, became a pilot officer and stayed on after the war in the entertainment unit with 3 corporals- Peter Sellers, Dick Emery and Tony Hancock. He was demobbed in 1947 and the same year in the musical The Dancing Years. Mid November 1950 he was compare on television's The Centre Show , a variety show in which Hugh Lloyd made his debut. Frank married Beryl on the 5th January 1945 and had a daughter, Jane in 1946 and lived in West Wickham in Kent

Stephen Lewis, will be chiefly remembered for the comedy catchphrase: "I 'ate you Butler!" He delivered it week after week in the hit sitcom On The Buses, a saucy slice of life that ran on ITV from 1969 to 1973. Lewis was Cyril "Blakey" Blake, a bus inspector with a Hitler moustache and delusions of grandeur. His nemesis was Stan Butler, a driver played by Reg Varney, who used his route as an opportunity to pick up stray "birds". By today's standards of television, On The Buses has all the subtlety and political correctness of cave drawings. But it was wildly popular, and Lewis's comic timing reflected a considerable acting talent. Lewis entered acting in an era of social mobility that is almost inconceivable today. He was born in Poplar, East London, on December 17 1926. His first job was as a merchant seaman; he reconsidered his vocation after he was persuaded to go to a performance of the experimental Theatre Workshop group run by the brilliant Left-wing director Joan Littlewood. After the performance, the audience was invited on to the stage to meet the cast and discuss the play. Lewis enjoyed the experience and, after turning up to others, got to know the Workshop well. Eventually, Littlewood, perhaps exasperated by Lewis's suggested stage directions, said: "You're so blooming clever, why not do it yourself?" He agreed, auditioned and was offered a part. After a successful run, Littlewood asked Lewis if he would like to stick with the company but he said he wanted to return to the sea. The director persuaded him to stay on the stage and he made his West End debut in Brendan Behan's The Hostage in 1958. In 1960, he wrote Sparrers Can't Sing, a play about life in the East End that relied heavily on actors' improvisations. It was a success and was released as a film (Sparrows Can't Sing) in 1963, with a cast that included Barbara Windsor and Roy Kinnear - although even their talents could not sell the social realist dialogue to a global audience. The New York Times sniffed: "This isn't a picture for anyone with a logical mind or an ear for language. The gabble of Cockney spoken here is as incomprehensible as the reasoning of those who speak it." It was the first English-language film to be released in the US with subtitles. Throughout the 1960s, Lewis took a series of small roles culminating in a large part in the 1969 television play, Mrs Wilson's Diary, alongside another Theatre Workshop regular called Bob Grant. That same year, he landed a role in a new series called On the Buses, which also featured Grant as a lascivious bus conductor teamed up with Reg Varney, his equally Dionysian mate. Although the show was undoubtedly rude, crude and occasionally prejudiced, it offered genuinely witty reflections on the nature of 1970s class conflict. In the world of On the Buses, workers were constantly on strike and after more money; managerial characters such as Lewis's Blakey were exploitative snobs who thought they had authority just because they wore a badge. It was plain where the audience's sympathies were supposed to lie: many was the time that a bus "hilariously" ran over poor Blakey's foot or a bucket of water was tipped over his head. The cry: "I 'ate you Butler" was born of impotent rage. Although Varney the actor was Lewis's senior, it was still Varney's character, Reg, that got all the "crumpet". Lewis was only in his early forties when he took the role of Blakey, but playing ageing authority figures became his stock in trade. In the 1970s, he appeared in the television sequel to On The Buses, Don't Drink the Water, three big-screen outings of On The Buses and two cinematic sex comedies (Adventures of a Taxi Driver, Adventures of a Plumber's Mate). He later had parts in the films Personal Services (1987) and The Krays (1990). In 1988, he played a new character in the long-running BBC series Last of the Summer Wine - Clem "Smiler" Hemmingway - which he thoroughly enjoyed. "It's got so much charm," he said of the show. "I don't think any other country in the world has comedy like that." From 1995 to 1997, he appeared in the equally gentle sitcom Oh, Doctor Beeching! In 2007, he stepped down from Last of the Summer Wine because of ill health. Stephen Lewis remained a committed socialist. In a stroke of irony, however, in 1981 he was hired to promote CH coaches, in the character of Blakey; it was the first private bus company to break the public transport monopoly of Cardiff city council. This was exactly the kind of Thatcherite revolution of which Blakey would probably have approved. In his diaries, Tony Benn recalled campaigning with Lewis in 1984, describing him as "very direct" and "extremely amusing". He lived until the age of 88.

Brian Wilde was born on 13 June 1927 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Porridge (1979), Last of the Summer Wine (1973) and Porridge (1974). He was married to Eva Stuart. He died on 20 March 2008 in Ware, Hertfordshire, England, UK.

Tom Owen was born on 8 April 1949 in Brighton, Sussex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971), The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) and The Hello Goodbye Man (1984). He was married to Mary Bernadette Therese Moylan. He died on 8 November 2022 in England, UK.

Danny O'Dea was a British funnyman born out of the finest Music Hall tradition, left a legacy which spans eight decades and reads like the history of British comedy. He performed alongside some of the biggest names in the business including Arthur Askey, Les Dawson, Dick Emery, John Inman and Cilla Black, entering showbiz at an early age thanks to a enviable pedigree and working until he was 90, most recently enjoying popularity as long-sighted Eli Duckett in Last of the Summer Wine.

He was the nephew of music hall comedians Morney Cash and Archie Glen and was related to beautiful actress Kay Kendall, granddaughter of musical comedy star Marie Kendall and daughter of vaudevillian Terry Kendall. Kay, who married Rex Harrison, had a brief, very glamorous career but died from leukaemia in 1959, aged 33.

Danny began his epic career in the theatre, appearing in hundreds of musical comedies, plays and pantomimes and thousands of music hall, cabaret and seaside summer shows nationwide and in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. He became well-known as a fine comedy actor and a brilliant stand-up comedian. During a summer season in Blackpool he fell in love with his wife Doris, a dancer in a variety show, but it was in London in the 1950s and 1960s that his career really took off.

He became a member of Brian Rix's acclaimed company at London's Whitehall Theatre and appeared for six years in the long-running farce Pyjama Tops as doddering policeman Inspector Crindle. Two years at the Windmill Theatre co-starring with John Inman and Fiona Richmond in Let's Get Laid and roles as the effeminate Eric Tweedy in Les Dawson's Don't Tell the Wife and Albert Waterman in the blockbusting stage version of Carry On Laughing, alongside a cast which included Liz Fraser, Peter Butterworth, Kenneth Connor, Jack Douglas and Ann Ashton, built him a reputation as a bawdy comic player of the highest order. He became a regular on BBC Radio and later television, appearing on Sez Les with Les Dawson, Selwyn Froggart with Bill Maynard and as Tim Trimmer, the jovial old boatman in All Creatures Great and Small.

Later television appearances included Winning Streak, Bulman, The Book Tower and a guest appearance on Jim'll Fix It, as well as Victoria Wood and One Foot In The Grave.

During pantomime season he worked with stars including Millicent Martin, Arthur Askey, Nat Jackley, Dickie Henderson, Martie Wilde, Dick Emery and Frank Ifield, often stealing the show as the pantomime dame. He played the robber in Les Dawson's record-breaking 1980 panto at the Birmingham Palladium, the following season he was in Oxford playing Dame Merryweather alongside Stu Francis and The Krankies and in 1982, aged 80, he starred as Widow Twankey in Aladdin in Kirkcaldy. These exhausting runs lasted months and included around 100 shows, but Danny thrived on it. In 1986, aged 84, he only got busier. The year began in panto in Oxford alongside Jim Davidson as an ugly sister in Cinderella and ended at Leeds City varieties with Jack and the Beanstalk - his last stage appearance. In between he fitted in a season in Alan Bleasdale's farce Having a Ball in Exeter, starred as Paddy in Rita, Sue and Bob Too and landed a part in the BBC's Last of the Summer Wine. His character Eli remained a fixture for 15 years, until Danny was 90. Series director Alan RJ Bell said: "I'd get letters saying they only watch the show for Eli. He's got friends all over the world because the show is now broadcast in America. "Danny's scenes as Eli Duckett will be a lasting testament to his comic timing and sense of fun." Ken Kitson, co-star on Last of the Summer Wine, added: "I respected him, admired him and thought his timing was second to none. I remember him entertaining us for four hours when we were stuck on a bus, telling us about his music hall days." Danny's agent of over 30 years Michael Joseph said Danny's training in variety and music hall had set him apart. "I've known him for 50 years and it's very sad to know he's no longer with us because our business really needs people like him," he said. "There's no-one to replace him. "No-one can do the falls, the facial expressions and the comedy Danny used to do. He'd had 50 years' experience before he got to television. He was an amazing character."

Danny, who lived in Sal Royd, Low Moor, for 40 years before moving to Hartshead Manor Nursing Home in 2001 died aged 91 in 2003 leaving a daughter and two granddaughters.

Ken Kitson was born on 7 July 1946 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Danger UXB (1979), Coronation Street (1960) and Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1987).

Burt Kwouk was a British actor, who was best known for his role as Cato in the Pink Panther films, and for playing Mr Ling in the third James Bond film, Goldfinger.

Kwouk was born in Warrington, but was brought up in Shanghai. He made his film debut in the 1957 film Windom's Way. In Goldfinger (1964) he played Mr. Ling, a Chinese expert in nuclear fission; in the non-Eon spoof Casino Royale (1967) he played a general and in You Only Live Twice (1967) Kwouk played the part of a Japanese operative of Blofeld.

He also made appearances in many television programmes, including a portrayal of Imperial Japanese Army Major Yamauchi in the British drama series Tenko and as Entwistle in Last of the Summer Wine.

Kwouk died on 24 May 2016, at the age of 85.

Actor and comedian Brian Murphy was born on the Isle of Wight, one of three siblings, to restaurateurs Gerald and Mabel Murphy. From his early years he had a keen interest in variety theatre and a knack for impersonating famous comedians like Will Hay and Stan Laurel. Following national service with the Royal Air Force at Northwood HQ (where he befriended another aspiring actor in Richard Briers), Murphy studied at RADA but dropped out after one year due to financial difficulties. Briers and Murphy afterwards acted on stage with the drama society of the Borough Polytechnic Institute in London. Murphy then joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop (based at the Theatre Royal in Stratford East). Among his fellow alumni were future co-star Yootha Joyce and Carol Gibson, later to become his first wife. Following his debut as Drinkwater in a 1956 production of George Bernard Shaw's play 'Captain Brassbound's Conversion', Murphy went on to appear in both the stage and film versions of Littlewood's Sparrows Can't Sing (alongside Yootha Joyce) and in Oh, What a Lovely War, the latter transferring to Broadway for a successful run between September 1964 and January 1965.

On screen from 1960, Murphy toiled for many years in relative anonymity as a journeyman supporting actor. His stock rose dramatically, however, with his breakthrough role in the ITV sitcom Man About the House (1973): as the lazy, inept and decidedly unambitious landlord George Roper, perpetually henpecked by his imperious, social climbing wife Mildred (Yootha Joyce, in her most famous role). The immense popularity of the two characters spawned a sequel, George and Mildred (1980), which ran for five seasons. A planned sixth and final season never came to pass, due to Joyce's untimely death in 1980.

The writing partnership of Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer (who had created George and Mildred) later devised another starring vehicle, specifically tailored for Murphy's brand of physical comedy. The Incredible Mr Tanner (1981) cast the actor as a bungling, accident-prone escapologist. However, on this occasion, audience support failed to materialise and the show was discontinued due to poor ratings. The same fate befell Murphy's next venture, the BBC sitcom L for Lester (1982), in which he played a hapless driving instructor.

Faring perhaps better as a member of ensemble casts, he played an ineffectual private detective in Lame Ducks (1984), conman George Manners in the soap Brookside (1982), the dithery, forgetful neighbor Arthur Capstick in Mrs Merton & Malcolm (1999) and practical joker Alvin Smedley in 77 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine (1973). One-off performances saw him as comedian Arthur Lucan in the TV movie On Your Way Riley (1985); a troubled Chief Inspector, posthumously credited with solving an old mystery, actually unravelled by magician/sleuth Jonathan Creek (1997), and a boozy vagrant, dressed as an elf, in an episode of The Bill (1984). He also popped up as Neville, a recurring character, in several instalments of The Catherine Tate Show (2004). Returning to the stage with Theatre Royal in the early nineties, Murphy portrayed 'the jolly old tramp' Thomas Marvel in a comic interpretation of 'The Invisible Man'.

Brian Murphy was married since 1995 to the actress and crime writer Linda Regan. He died on February 2 2025 at his home in Kent, England.

Keith Clifford was born on 20 June 1938 in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Last of the Summer Wine (1973), Coronation Street (1960) and Northern Lights (2006). He has been married to Annie since 23 November 1974. They have six children.

An English stage and television actress. She was best known for her roles in British television sitcoms, such as Elizabeth in Keeping Up Appearances (1990) and Miss Davenport in Last of the Summer Wine.

Tewson was born in Hampstead, London, England in 1931. Her father, William, was a professional musician and played the double bass in the BBC Symphony Orchestra; her mother, Kate (née Morley, born 1908), was a nurse. After grammar school, Tewson studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from which she graduated in 1952. She was briefly married to actor Leonard Rossiter; they divorced in 1961.

A regular comedy performer in sketches featuring Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker on David Frost on Sunday and Hark at Barker (1970), she later appeared in Mostly Monkhouse, a BBC Radio comedy programme with David Jason supporting Bob Monkhouse. She also appeared a few times in Z-Cars (1963-69) and The Charlie Drake Show (1968). Tewson played Edna Hawkins (usually referred to as Mrs H by Shelley) in the first six series of the British sitcom Shelley (1979-82). Later, she played Jane Travers in Ronnie Barker's sitcom Clarence (1988), which he also wrote, and was his last starring television role before his retirement.

Tewson is best known for her role as Elizabeth, neighbour and confidant of Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances. Tewson appeared in nearly every episode for the five series run, providing an often rattled but pragmatic counter to the scattered and clueless Mrs Bouquet.

Tewson starred with John Inman in Odd Man Out (1977), a sitcom, where they played half-brother/half-sister roles.

Tewson appeared semi-regularly as Miss Davenport in Last of the Summer Wine (2003-10), a series written by Roy Clarke who also wrote Keeping Up Appearances. She also appeared in two episodes of the documentary series Comedy Connections, talking about her work in Keeping Up Appearances (2004) and opposite The Two Ronnies (2005). In 2009, she played the role of Iris in the radio drama Leaves in Autumn written by Susan Casanove, produced by the Wireless Theatre Company.

Other television appearances were in an episode of Heartbeat ("Closing The Book", 2002) and as the competition judge, Samantha Johnstone, in an episode in the mystery drama Midsomer Murders ("Judgement Day", 2002). Later she was featured in two episodes of Doctors as kleptomaniac, Audrey Wilson, ("Now You See It...", 2009) and as Marjorie Page, a woman in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease ("The Bespectacled Bounder," 2012). She also appeared in an episode of Lewis.

In 2012 Tewson launched her one-woman show Still Keeping Up Appearances? touring the UK.

She died on 18th August 2022 of natural causes at the age of 91.

Louis Emerick was born in Liverpool, England, UK. Louis is an actor, known for Kung Fury 2, Layer Cake (2004) and Zapped (2016). Louis is married to Maureen ?. They have three children.

Dora Bryan was born on 7 February 1923 in Parbold, Lancashire, England, UK. She was an actress, known for A Taste of Honey (1961), The Fallen Idol (1948) and Last of the Summer Wine (1973). She was married to Bill Lawton. She died on 23 July 2014 in Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK.

John Comer was born on 1 March 1924 in Manchester, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Last of the Summer Wine (1973), The Family Way (1966) and Murder Most English: A Flaxborough Chronicle (1977). He died on 11 February 1984 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, UK.