Christopher Benjamin

Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Christopher Benjamin is a British actor, born 27 December 1934 in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England. He is well known for his roles in some of the UK's biggest cult television programmes. This included playing the same character in two Patrick McGoohan dramas, Danger Man and The Prisoner, fuelling speculation that they are possibly linked. He was also a regular in The Avengers and Doctor Who, playing in three episodes of each, mostly in comedy roles. He also played recurring roles in several period dramas. He was Sir John Glutton, the regular adversary in the period family adventure series Dick Turpin, Channing in several episodes of the third series of When The Boat Comes In, and Prosper Profound in the acclaimed 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga . He reprised the role of Henry Gordon Jago, from the Doctor Who serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang in four series of Jago and Litefoot audio plays, after a well received episode of the Big Finish Productions audio C.D. series Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles entitled The Mahogany Murderers. He acted alongside Trevor Baxter who played Professor George Litefoot. Predominantly a theatre actor, he has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He appeared at Shakespeare's Globe from 17 June to 5 October 2008 as Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Description above from the Wikipedia article Christopher Benjamin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .

Movies

Ace of Wands is a fantasy-based British children's television show broadcast on ITV between 1970 and 1972, created by Trevor Preston and Pamela Lonsdale and produced by Thames Television. The title, taken from the name of a Tarot card describes the principal character, called "Tarot" who combined stage magic with supernatural powers. Tarot has a pet Owl named Ozymandias, played by Fred Owl. Ace of Wands ran for two seasons of thirteen episodes and a third season of twenty. Many, if not all, of the first 26 episodes are believed to have been wiped, although the final season is intact. In the first two series Tarot is assisted by Sam Maxstead, a reformed convict and Lillian Palmer known by her nickname, Lulli, an orphan. Lulli shares a telepathic link with Tarot, which enables them to communicate over great distances. After having to leave the programme because of prior commitments, in the final series this pair were replaced by brother and sister Chas, a photographer, and Mikki, a female journalist, who have very similar roles, she also sharing a telepathic link with Tarot. A character named Mr Sweet who runs an antiquarian bookshop often has the answer to Tarot's questions. Sweet is based in a university for the last series. Mr. Stabs, played by Russell Hunter, is defeated by Ace of Wands's lead Tarot, yet returns, again played by Hunter, in an episode of the anthology series Shadows. The character's final appearance was in Dramarama, this time portrayed by David Jason. However, the Dramarama story was a prequel to the previous ones.

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Ace of Wands
1970

Judge John Deed is a British legal drama television series produced by the BBC in association with One-Eyed Dog for BBC One. It was created by G.F. Newman and stars Martin Shaw as Sir John Deed, a High Court judge who tries to seek real justice in the cases before him. It also stars Jenny Seagrove as the barrister Jo Mills, frequently the object of Deed's desire. A pilot episode was broadcast on 9 January 2001, followed by the first full series on 26 November 2001. The sixth and last series concluded on 18 January 2007. The programme then went on an indefinite break after Shaw became involved in another television programme, and he and Seagrove expressed a wish for the format of the series to change before they filmed new episodes. By 2009, the series had officially been cancelled. The six series produced make it the longest-running BBC legal drama. The factual accuracy of the series is often criticised by legal professionals and journalists; many of the decisions taken by Deed are unlikely to happen in a real court. The romanticised vision of the court system created by Newman caused a judge to issue a warning to a jury not to let the series influence their view of trials—referring to an episode where Deed flouts rules when called up for jury duty. Another episode led to complaints about biased and incorrect information about the MMR vaccine, leading the BBC to ban repeats of it in its original form. All six series have been released on DVD in the UK.

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Judge John Deed
2001