Michael Knowles (actor)

Michael Knowles
Knowles at a Dad's Army event in Norfolk, May 2011
Born	Michael Sydney Knowles (1937-04-26) 26 April 1937 (age 84) Spondon, Derby, Derbyshire, England
Occupation	Actor, Scriptwriter
Notable work	It Ain't Half Hot Mum (1974-1981), Come Back Mrs Noah (1977-1978), It Sticks Out Half a Mile (1981-1983), You Rang, M’Lord? (1988-1993)
Spouse(s)	Linda James ​ (m. 1964)​
Children	2

Michael Sydney Knowles (born 26 April 1937)^[1] is an English actor and scriptwriter. He is best known for his roles in BBC sitcoms written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft.

He often starred alongside Donald Hewlett with whom he first appeared with in It Ain't Half Hot Mum. They later appeared together in Rogue’s Rock, Come Back Mrs. Noah and You Rang, M'Lord?

Knowles has had a successful writing career, co-adapting with Harold Snoad the radio version of Dad’s Army and writing with Snoad the Dad's Army spinoff series It Sticks Out Half a Mile for radio, which became the television series High and Dry.

Early life[]

Knowles attended Bemrose Grammar School for Boys, Derby (now Bemrose School), where he stayed on into the 6th form and played the lead role in the school's production of Shakespeare's Henry V.^[2] Knowles considered reading medicine before deciding to become an actor.

Acting career[]

Knowles started his acting career with the Watford Palace Theatre company which was being managed by Jimmy Perry who would later go on to have a very successful writing career and end up casting Knowles as some of his most memorable characters . It was at Watford where he also met many of his future co-stars including Colin Bean, John Clegg, Donald Hewlett, Jeffrey Holland, Frank Williams, and his future wife .

Knowles made his first television appearance in 1969 with the sitcom Dad's Army in the episode "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Walker". All recordings of the episode have since been lost but he went on to make four further appearances in the series. Knowles later said of his time with Dad's Army that it "was my introduction to TV. It was quite awe-inspiring working with actors like John Laurie and John Le Mesurier, people I’d only seen in films before, and here I was actually working with them. I was very nervous but enjoyed my time very much."^[3] Knowles went on to make his first film appearance in the 1971 feature film of Dad’s Army, and the next year appear in the film That’s Your Funeral.

Knowles appeared in the first episode of Are You Being Served? and was the played first customer that was served on the series, Knowles later went on to co-write several episodes of the series.

Knowles is best known for his role as Captain Jonathan Ashwood in the 1970s sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum (1974–81). The series was written by Jimmy Perry who had first worked with Knowles when Perry was manager of the Watford Palace Theatre. In the series Knowles starred alongside Donald Hewlett, they had also previously worked at the Watford Palace Theatre but this was the first time that they had appeared together on television, they subsequently worked on many other series, they also did many pantomimes together over the years. When Knowles asked how he ought to play his character, co-writer David Croft said that Captain Ashwood was rather like Knowles himself, a bit ‘silly arse’.^[4] It Ain't Half Hot Mum regularly got audiences of up to 17 million.^[5]

Shortly after making his first appearance in It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Knowles had a recurring role in The Rough with the Smooth in 1975 playing the Vicar. The series also starred Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Richard Hurndall. At the same time as The Rough with the Smooth Knowles appeared as the character of Nigel in the series Rogue’s Rock, starring Clive Morton and Knowles’ regular co-star Donald Hewlett. The next year Knowles went on to have a minor role in the film Spy Story starring Philip Latham.

In 1977 Knowles started alongside Donald Hewlett for the second time on television for Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft's second writing collaboration with the science fiction series Come Back Mrs Noah in which Knowles played the mathematician Fanshaw. Unfortunately, the series was not a success and ran for only 6 episodes with some even going as far as to say that it is Britain's worst ever TV sitcom.^[6] The series has not been repeated in the UK but has in American where it was slightly more well received by audiences.^[6] Knowles continued his double-act alongside Hewlett in the 1984 eight part BBC Radio sitcom as George, a laid-off city gent. In 1986 Knowles appeared in the film The End Of The World Man playing Sir George.

In 1988, Knowles played The Honourable Teddy Meldrum in Jimmy Perry and David Croft's last collaboration You Rang, M'Lord? which ran until 1992, the series was not quite as successful as the previous works of Perry and Croft but was still well received, however the series was very popular in Eastern Europe and especially in Hungary. In 2018 Knowles along with four other former cast members attending an event in Budapest with 900 Hungarian fans.

In 1989, Knowles appeared in his first and only American film, Vampire's Kiss starring Nicolas Cage. However, his most notable film role came later that year when he voiced the Head of the Air Force in the animated movie The BFG, starring David Jason and based on the novel by Roald Dahl.

More recently, Knowles has appeared as Norrington Byng in the children's television series The DJ Kat Show and alongside David Walliams in the comedy sketch show Walliams & Friend, playing the father of Jack Whitehall alongside Whitehall's real life mother Hillary.

In 2021 Knowles appeared on British television for the first time in five years by being interviewed for the Channel 5 documentary Dad’s Army: Secret Lives & Scandal. Others interviewees included Frank Williams, Arthur Lowe’s son Stephen Lowe and John Le Mesurier’s third wife Joan Le Mesurier.^[7]

Writing career[]

Knowles is first credited with writing four episodes of Are You Being Served including Cold Comfort, Big Brother, Shoulder to Shoulder and New Look. Knowles also appeared in two episodes including the pilot and Up Captain Peacock.

Knowles first met Harold Snoad in 1972 when they were introduced by a mutual friend Jimmy Perry, and in 1973 it was decided that Dad’s Army would be adapted for radio. At the time David Croft and Jimmy Perry were too busy writing series six to adapt it themselves so it was suggested that Knowles and Snoad would do the first script, the BBC liked it and asked them to do another five. In total the pair adapted 66 episodes for radio which were recorded at the Paris Theatre in London's Haymarket.^[8] In 2017, David Benson and Jack Lane adapted nine of the radio scripts for the theatre in a show called The Dad's Army Radio Hour (later called Dad's Army Radio Show) which they performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. They went on to tour the country with the show until 2020 when the tour was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After the success of Dad’s Army and the radio adaptation, Knowles once again teamed up with Snoad to write It Sticks Out Half a Mile, a radio spin-off to Dad's Army. Work started on writing the script in 1980 and when the first one was shown to Arthur Lowe he was so taken with it he tried to persuade the BBC to make it a television series rather than radio, however the BBC said no. Recording began in 1981 and picked up the story in 1948 and follows the attempts at trying to save the town's pier. Unfortunately Arthur Lowe died in 1982 and many believed that that was the end of it, however at Arthur Lowe's funeral Joan Cooper (Arthur Lowe's wife) found Knowles and Snoad, and told them that her husband liked their scripts so much that he would have wanted the full series to go ahead. Recording for the series stated later in 1982 with Ian Lavender and Bill Pertwee filling the void left by Arthur Lowe.^[9]

Together they also adapted It Sticks Out Half a Mile for television, with a pilot called Walking the Planks for the BBC which first aired on 2nd August 1985 starred starring Michael Elphick and Richard Wilson. The Pilot was very well received by audiences but the BBC said that they were not interested in making further episodes. Undeterred, the pair took the idea to ITV who agreed to making a seven part series for Yorkshire Television, this time with Bernard Cribbins instead of Micheal Elphick. The series was well received but filmed on a very low budget and therefore had no location filming, a second series was not commissioned.^[9]

Selected filmography[]

Film and television[]

Radio[]

Writing credits[]

Personal life[]

Knowles married actress Linda James in 1964, having met her while working at the Watford Palace Theatre. James has also worked on many situation comedies, with her most notable role being in The Gnomes of Dulwich which was written by Jimmy Perry, she also appeared in several episodes of Dad's Army and The Liver Birds. They have twin daughters.^{[citation needed]}

References[]

External links[]

• Michael Knowles at IMDb