The Stage

Timothy Bateson

Published Tuesday 26 January 2010 at 13:00 by Michael Quinn

Timothy Bateson’s place in theatre history was sealed in 1955 when he played Lucky in Peter Hall’s landmark production of Waiting for Godot. More than half a century later, he made his last appearance on a London stage in 2007 in The Country Wife at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Born in London on April 3, 1926, Bateson went on to become an enthusiastic student performer at Wadham College, Oxford. He secured his first professional role, as Lord Verisopht in Alberto Cavalcanti’s 1947 film version of Nicholas Nickleby, on the recommendation of his history tutor Neville Coghill. The appearance led to seasons at Stratford and the Old Vic, as well as Broadway and London runs with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra.

Bateson deftly balanced film, theatre, radio and television throughout his career. A stalwart of the BBC’s early Dickens adaptations, he was equally at home in drama as comedy, taking roles in Dr Finlay’s Casebook, The Avengers, Z Cars and, latterly, in Grange Hill, Midsomer Murders, Heartbeat and My Hero. His film appearances included The Mouse That Roared, The Italian Job, Mike Leigh’s All Or Nothing and Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist.

Notable stage appearances included doubling for Alastair Sim in The Clandestine Marriage in 1975, Peter Brook’s Measure for Measure, John Gielgud’s King Lear, a recent Firs in Jonathan Miller’s The Cherry Orchard for the Sheffield Crucible, the UK premiere of The Fantasticks, gravedigger to Alan Rickman’s Hamlet, Pirandello’s Absolutely (Perhaps) directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and Yukio Ninagawa’s Tango at the End of Winter.

Bateson died, aged 83, on September 16 and is survived by his wife and three children.