Acting

Ray Ashcroft

Born 1952-06-28 · Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, UK

Raymond John Ashcroft is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as DS Geoff Daly in The Bill from 1996 to 2000, and Ronnie Marsden on Emmerdale from March to December 2003. In the late 1970s Ashcroft was the frontman of The Push, a Sheffield band. He started acting in repertory theatre before working in television and film productions. He played Ringo Starr in the biopic TV film Birth of the Beatles (1979),and he has also appeared in various television productions including Coronation Street. Ashcroft played DS Geoff Daly in The Bill from 1996 to 2000 before portraying Ronnie Madsen in Emmerdale (2003). In 2018, he portrayed Tom Jackson, a Yorkshire miner, in the play On Behalf of The People. In 2021, he played the lead role of Horace in the short film Mr Wong's Lullaby.

Acting credits

New Mars poster
7.3

Earth has been destroyed and the survivors have retreated to an underground city on Mars, preparing to head off to a new planet they hope to colonise.

New Mars

2019

Shoot to Kill poster
NR

Shoot to Kill is a four-hour drama documentary reconstruction of the events that led to the 1984–86 Stalker Inquiry into the shooting of six terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland in 1982 by a specialist unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), allegedly without warning (the so-called shoot-to-kill policy); the organised fabrication of false accounts of the events; and the difficulties created for the inquiry team in their investigation.

Shoot to Kill

1990

No artwork available
10.0

Clarence Flamer hosts a late-night talk show on regional radio station North Star Sound. A phone call he takes one night leads to his discovering a mortgage scam being run by a group of estate agents. His attempts to delve deeper have tragic consequences.

Night Voice

1990

The Four Minute Mile poster
7.5

For two brilliant young athletes - Roger Bannister of England and John Landy of Australia - the 1952 Helsinki Olympics present an exciting challenge. But events help set them on the path to something even more memorable than an Olympic gold medal - the race to break the four-minute mile....

The Four Minute Mile

1988

Birth of the Beatles poster
6.5

The early days of the Fab Four are traced from their bleakest hours as unknowns on Penny Lane in Liverpool to their triumph on "The Ed Sullivan Show."

Birth of the Beatles

1979

Criminal poster
9.0

Simon Willerton's suicide in 1990 brought to six the number of young prisoners who hanged themselves in British prisons in just over six months, prompting public debate over conditions in remand prisons like Armley where overcrowding was so severe that no new inmates could be admitted. Simon faced a burglary charge over the theft of a hot-water bottle from an unoccupied flat. Less a hardened criminal than an immature, gawky teenager who never fitted in, Simon and his tragic death inspired this teleplay.

Criminal

1994

I Remember When We Danced poster
NR

A widowed husband comes to terms with the loss of his wife as he writes a speech for her funeral.

I Remember When We Danced

2021