John Alderton(I)

Bushy-browed, latterly bearded English actor and comedian, the son of Gordon John Alderton (1909-1969) and his wife Ivy (née Handley, 1906-2002). Having forgone early ambitions of becoming an architect, Alderton worked as a driving instructor before deciding to take up acting as a profession. In 1961, he graduated from RADA on a scholarship. This was immediately followed by his first theatrical performance with the Theatre Royal Repertory Company in York. Four years later, he debuted on the London stage in Bill Naughton's play Spring and Port Wine (his role of Harold Crompton, one of the sons, was played in the later film version by Rodney Bewes).

Alderton first came to prominence on screen as Dr. Richard Moone in the medical soap Emergency-Ward 10 (1957) (starring alongside his first wife, Jill Browne). As Britain's first twice-weekly serial, it already claimed 16 million viewers by the time Alderton joined the cast. After 1963, and for the next few years, he toiled in relatively unremarkable supporting roles in films and on television. However, near the end of the decade, he was able to make his breakthrough in the sitcom Please Sir! (1968), becoming BAFTA award-nominated as naïve, stammering novice teacher Bernard 'Privet' Hedges, assigned the school's most unruly class of sixteen-year olds. He reprised this role for the feature film of that name but eventually left the series after changes to the cast led to a decline in ratings. Please, Sir!'s less popular spin-off, The Fenn Street Gang (1971), followed the later exploits of the former students. The show was axed after two seasons.

Alderton attracted further audience attention in the BBC sitcom My Wife Next Door (1972) (opposite Hannah Gordon) and in ITV's cult period drama Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), as the moustachioed chauffeur Thomas Watkins, a character the actor himself described as "a conniving, thieving, chauvinistic baddie." The series also featured Alderton's second wife, actress Pauline Collins, with whom he went on to co-star in a succession of other TV shows, including the sitcoms No, Honestly (1974) and Thomas and Sarah (1979), as well as the bucolic drama Forever Green (1989). They also appeared together in Wodehouse Playhouse (1974), based on the 'Mr. Mulliner' short stories. Alderton, perfectly cast, essayed an assortment of wildly eccentric comic characters, including the timid curate Augustus Mulliner, the stammering George Mulliner, conjurer Mortimer Rackstraw (aka The Great Boloni), Hollywood producer Jacob Schnellenhammer, tiresome smart Alec and golf tragic Smallwood Bessemer and verbose politician Clifford Gandle.

Alderton was afforded a rare starring turn on the big screen as 1930's Yorkshire veterinarian James Herriot in It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (1976). He was soon back to television comedy with The Upchat Line (1977), in which he played the homeless, womanising bounder Mike Upchat, a congenital liar, who spent most of his time seeking out attractive members of the opposite sex to provide him with accommodation for the night and a warm body to lie next to. Much of the action revolved around Mike's inevitable problems with irate husbands, outraged parents or jealous boyfriends. The notion of casting Alderton as a scoundrel had been floated as early as 1969, when director Richard Lester got the nod (and the finances) from United Artists to film the exploits of George MacDonald Fraser's arch cad Harry Flashman. Lester and comedy writer Frank Muir had already earmarked Alderton to play the eponymous anti-hero, deeming him 'young, tall, athletic, a good rider and an excellent comedy actor'. Alas, a management change at United Artists caused the project to be cancelled. Muir later wrote "If ever it was a case of the right actor finding the right part and then losing it through no fault of his own with was John."

Through the eighties and nineties Alderton continued to appear in a variety of roles, including as Estragon in Waiting for Godot on stage at the National Theatre, as the headmaster of a school for maladjusted children in the film Clockwork Mice (1995) and as the overbearing, greedy rental property landlord Christopher Casby in the superb BBC Dickens adaptation of Little Dorrit (2008). He was nominated as 'supporting actor of the year' in the 25th London Film Critics Circle Awards for his role in the film Calendar Girls (2003).

He also narrated and voiced all the characters for the children's animated series Fireman Sam (1987) during the first four seasons. Alderton's final screen credit was in 2010.